Maarten Hoffmann’s interview with the CEO of the Roffey Park Institute
NEWS
8 World and national news
A round up of the important business stories from around the world
SURREY CHAMBERS
7 Surrey Chamber News
A round up of Surrey Chambers of Commerce members’ news
10 Surrey Chamber Events
What’s on for Surrey Chambers members
12 Surrey Business School
Boost business productivity with tailormade learning
14 Local Skills Improvement Plan
Embracing diversity
17 Foxhills
What delegates want on an awayday EVENTS
20 The Platinum Club
Now in its 16th year, it remains the preeminent networking forum in Sussex
28 Surrey Business Awards
All the highlights and winners from this most prestigious event
44 Sussex Business Awards
The 36th annual Sussex Business Awards have been judged, and the finalists announced
54 Sussex Contemporary Art Exhibition
Surrey BM’s review of the recent arts event in Newhaven
70 Brighton & Hove Business Awards
The BAHBAs are back for 2025, and are open for entries
72 World’s Highest Bike Ride
Neil Laughton breaks another world record by taking the highest altitude bike ride ever INTERVIEW
56 Professor Catherine Robinson
The Dean of the University of Brighton’s School of Business & Law chats to Surrey Business Magazine BUSINESS
46 Gatwick Airport
More than an airport, London Gatwick has held its first innovation summit
52 MDHUB
Interview with Josh O’Riordan, Managing Director of Brightec
60 Influencers Forum
In-depth roundtable discussion on Business Start-Ups, featuring some of the region’s leading experts
69 Creative Pod
Announcing the Big Animal Lottery on behalf of the RSPCA
75 Cleankill
Cleankill named as ‘Investors in People’ finalist
LEGAL
42 DMH Stallard
Time for a private equity bounceback?
50 Mayo Wynne Baxter
Who is on your Christmas card list?
EDUCATION
27 Sussex & Surrey IoT
Roche Diagnostics’ new partnership with the IoT
FINANCE
24 Kreston Reeves BUDGET SPECIAL Daniel Grainge reviews the October Budget, and what it means for business
34 Kreston Reeves
Sustainable business: the leadership challenge TRAVEL
76 Innsbruck
Austria’s picture-perfect landscape MOTORING
80 All I Want For Christmas Is... Maarten Hoffmann suggests a few stocking fillers – motoring and lifestyle – for those with a few quid to spare
BUDGET
At the time of going to press we were just analysing the first budget delivered by the Labour government, which promised not to take money out of the working person’s pocket. Whilst there were no direct hits on personal taxation, some of the actions could have a knock-on effect.
The increase in Employer’s NIC of 1.2% along with the reduction in threshold at which an Employer needs to pay NI will impact their costs and could result in less recruitment and reduced salary reviews. Coupled with an increase in minimum wage and all the changes in employment legislation being faced by employers we are again navigating some challenging times.
UK TO PREPARE FOR A NEW WAY OF WORKING
❛❛ Consultation is currently being undertaken around the new employment proposals and we are working closely with the Chamber network to ensure that the business voice is heard ❜❜
CHANGES IN EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION
Consultation is currently being undertaken around the new employment proposals and we are working closely with the Chamber network to ensure that the business voice is heard. There are huge changes being proposed, and businesses must be engaged and supported on them every step of the way.
If the right balance is struck, then there
is the potential to get more people into work and boost economic growth. But if the process is mishandled, there is a danger these changes could have the opposite effect. It is important to stress that the legislation we are seeing today is a starting point.
It is setting out a framework, and the detail and the mechanics of how this will operate will still need much further consultation and we encourage businesses to share their concerns with us. Many of these changes are going to need secondary legislation and it’s unlikely we’ll see major changes to business practices until 2026.
But firms will want to see more detail on the timeline for these reforms and guarantees that there will be no surprises. The Chamber will be bringing regular updates with opportunities to feedback directly to government ministers.
HOSPITALITY AND VISITOR ECONOMY
British Chambers of Commerce recently released a report on the UK visitor economy, which was dealt a severe blow by Brexit and the Covid pandemic. While recovery has been promising,
❛❛ Firms will want to see more detail on the timeline for these reforms and guarantees that there will be no surprises. The Chamber will be bringing regular updates with opportunities to feedback directly to government ministers ❜❜
major challenges still persist. These were not helped by one of the government’s announcements to raise funds by reducing the discount to retail and venues properties from 70% to 40%.
Whilst this took away the cliff edge of no discount on April 1st 2025, many businesses are still nowhere near previous levels of business. With Surrey’s visitor economy estimated at £3.3billion, we need to support this sector. If tax-free shopping for tourists isn’t reinstated, we risk losing ground to other countries, with visitors choosing to spend their money elsewhere.
Workforce shortages, particularly in hospitality, can only be addressed with a strong skills strategy and an
immigration system that truly supports businesses.
CLOSER TO HOME
We should never underestimate the power of networking, and we are finding that businesses are really valuing the events we deliver, including a pure networking event at Wine and Earth which was attended by nearly 80 delegates. Another key set of events is our Golf society, which runs every month at outstanding Golf Clubs in the county, allowing businesspeople to network in a relaxed if sometimes competitive way. It is the variety on offer at the chamber that makes us the go to place for growing your business. We are always keen to hear your thoughts so please feel free to contact us!
AND WHILE YOU’RE HERE...
Platinum Media Group enjoys the largest circulation of any business magazines in the UK, reaching over 720,000 readers across the South East and this includes 468,000 online readers. If you can’t wait for the next issue then jump onto our social media platforms and join the conversation.
Louise Punter
CEO Surrey Chamber of Commerce
Surrey Chambers of Commerce can be reached on 01483 735540, info@ surrey-chambers.co.uk, @surreychambers www.surrey-chambers.co.uk
CHAMBERS NEWS
CIVIC AGREEMENT FOR SURREY LAUNCHED
Surrey County Council, in partnership with Surrey’s three leading universities – Royal Holloway, University of London; University for the Creative Arts; and the University of Surrey – is proud to announce the launch of a new Civic Agreement for Surrey.
This groundbreaking initiative defines a shared commitment for these organisations to work collaboratively in the interests of the wider Surrey community: ensuring that no one is left behind. By pooling resources and expertise, the partners believe they are better placed to address local needs, drive innovation, and create a more inclusive and resilient Surrey by 2030.
and positive change to the people who live, learn and work in our communities across the county. Details are set out
everyone can benefit.
• Tackling health inequality.
• Enabling a greener future.
in a document which defines shared priorities, objectives, programmes of work and future ambitions.
It will serve as a public commitment to working together to bring about real
All will be delivered against four shared priorities, which are:
• Growing a sustainable economy so
• Empowered & thriving communities.
The launch of the Civic Agreement for Surrey is very much the first step in a long-term collaboration that includes every part of Surrey.
It welcomes further engagement from community stakeholders, businesses, and residents who share an interest in advancing the shared priorities and objectives set out in our civic agreement.
For more information on the Civic Agreement for Surrey and how you can get involved, contact: civicagreement@surreycc.gov.uk
SURREY’S ONLY GREEN BUSINESS AWARDS TO END
The CREST Business Awards programme, Surrey’s only green business awards, has announced its closure after supporting sustainable business practices in the region since 2020. The awards, run in association with the University of Surrey, were designed to celebrate and promote environmental sustainability among Surrey-based businesses.
Co-directors Carol Miller and Terry Tidbury have led a range of initiatives, including awards events, seminars, and the Green Exhibition. In 2024, due to the impact of current economic pressures, CREST turned its focus on raising funds for its named charity, Surrey Wildlife Trust (SWT), organising a successful Charity Golf Day that raised £4,000.
Despite positive feedback, the directors have decided to close CREST due to
personal commitments and the growing demands of running the awards.
The awards were initially introduced by Carol during her work with Woking News and Mail, where she developed the idea based on community interest in sustainability. With support from the University of Surrey and Surrey County Council, CREST grew into a county-wide initiative.
In a final message to its supporters, CREST said: “We would like to express heartfelt thanks to all who have supported us from inception –especially the teams at the Institute for Sustainability and Centre for Environment and Sustainability, our sponsors, Surrey Chambers of Commerce and of course all our entrants who have helped make this a fantastic and memorable journey.“
UAE MADE EASY
Explore how to expand into the UAE with our online masterclass.
28 NOV 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM Online
Make the next steps in your expansion to the UAE easy. Book onto our online masterclass hosted by Dr Frank Levene, founder of Blue Link Worldwide, and partner Fragomen LLP to access an array of experts that can support your business with UAE expansion aspirations. tinyurl.com/uae-made-easy
Find out more
WHY WE INVEST IN NURTURING
TOMORROW’S WORKFORCE
“It’s about creating opportunities that benefit both the students and the local economy ensuring a skilled, adaptable workforce for years to come.”
In today’s competitive landscape, businesses face the ongoing challenge of developing a skilled workforce that meets their evolving needs. East Surrey College offers a range of educational options — adult part-time qualifications, university level courses, and apprenticeships— designed to help
employers cultivate a loyal and capable team from within.
Its adult part-time qualifications provide flexibility, allowing employees to enhance their skills without compromising their work commitments. This accessibility ensures that businesses can support their employees’ growth while maintaining operational efficiency. Whether it’s upskilling in specific areas or gaining industry-recognised qualifications, this allows employees to take ownership of their professional development.
Additionally, its university level courses allow businesses to invest in their workforce’s long-term growth. By providing access to degree-level courses, companies can ensure that their teams are equipped with the latest knowledge and
expertise necessary to drive innovation and maintain a competitive edge.
Apprenticeships serve as a vital bridge between education and practical application. They enable employers to train new talent while instilling company values and practices. This not only reduces recruitment costs but also fosters loyalty, as apprentices are more likely to remain with a company that invests in their growth.
By leveraging Part-time courses, Higher Education, and Apprenticeships, employers can build a skilled, motivated workforce prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow. Investing in education is investing in a sustainable future for both businesses and their employees.
To find out more, contact the college’s Employer Service team via email employerservices@esc.ac.uk or call 01737 788316.
COOPER PARRY ACQUIRES TWO COMPANIES
Cooper Parry (CP) - the UK’s fastest growing accountancy firm - has announced completion on deals to acquire UHY Hacker Young Manchester and Haines Watts Thames Valley/ Reading.
The deals see CP increase its specialist team headcount across Audit, Tax, Outsourcing and Deals by 200 (including 17 Partners) to over 1,400 and takes group turnover to £180m for the current financial year.
The move follows market-leading organic growth, the recent acquisition of fast-growing London-based Salesforce consultancy, Cloud Orca, and co-founding the global professional services firms’ community, ATLAST.
The completion of these ninth and tenth deals in 20 months further drive CP’s ambition to be the undisputed #1 adviser to mid-market businesses.
Ade Cheatham, Cooper Parry CEO (right), stated, “Two landmark deals over the last couple of days confirm our ambition to create the UK’s next-generation professional services group. Acquiring UHY Hacker Young Manchester allows us to establish a powerful presence in the northwest. In the same way, the Thames Valley deal accelerates our growth down the M4 to create the #1 advisory firm in the UK’s ‘Silicon Valley’ and southwest.
“Our presence at the centre of every key UK business powerhouse – as one
iconic and rebellious brand – is key to supercharging the next phase of our expansion and market leadership.”
This engaging breakfast event offers a fantastic opportunity for free-flowing networking with fellow businesswomen. Finance experts will lead discussions on key topics, including the pros and cons of hiring consultants or freelancers versus full-time employees, with insights into financial investment, employment law, and regulations. Additionally, Natwest will be sharing tips for business banking for small or large businesses.
INCOTERMS 2020
November 20th – 9:00-12:30
Surrey Chambers of Commerce Dukes Court Office, Duke Street, Woking, GU21 5BH
Join our half-day course to gain a comprehensive understanding of Incoterms 2020 and the implications of each term on costs, risks, and responsibilities in international trade.
SOLVING THE RECRUITMENT CONUNDRUM
November 14th – 08:00-10:30
Login Business Lounge, 34 Park Street, Camberley, GU15 3PL
Description: There is no question that recruitment can be very challenging currently with many vacancies difficult to fill. On the other hand, there are many people ready and willing to work but they find it difficult to navigate the recruitment process. The purpose of this event is to help employers to understand the different pools of untapped talent, the support that is available to investigate these pools and many opportunities for training both new and established members of their teams.
Be greeted with an arrival drink, enjoy a beer pulling masterclass, create new connections, and find your networking ‘patter’ over an open bar and nibbles in a relaxing environment.
UAE MADE EASY
November 28th – 10:00-11:30 Online
Book onto our online masterclass to access an array of experts that can support your business with UAE expansion aspirations.
CUSTOMS PROCEDURES AND DOCUMENTATION
December 11th – 9:00-12:30
Surrey Chambers of Commerce Dukes Court Office, Duke Street, Woking, GU21 5BH
Join our half-day course to gain a thorough understanding of customs procedures and the necessary documentation required for international trade.
ANNUAL CHRISTMAS LUNCH
December 18th – 12:00-15:00
Harbour Hotel Guildford, 3 Alexandra Terrace, High Street, Guildford, GU1 3DA
Surrey Chambers of Commerce invites you to join us for festive networking at our Annual Christmas Lunch. Enjoy a delicious twocourse meal, a welcome drink, half a bottle of wine, a charity raffle, Christmas-themed games and the opportunity to jingle and mingle with other Surrey businesses.
BUSINESS BREAKFAST
January 8th – 8:00-10:00
Digital Skills Centre, Guildford College Stoke Road Guildford GU1 1EZ
Our bi-monthly Business Breakfasts are a wonderful opportunity to meet a range of Surrey businesses over a delicious breakfast. With a calendar bursting with interesting and stimulating events, we are sure you will find topics that are current and relevant to you and your business. We acknowledge that making new contacts is rather high on your priority list, so start your day with networking.
Boost business productivity with tailor-made learning
Surrey County Council and Surrey Business School have joined forces to design a bespoke Commercial Development Course, to generate additional revenue by offering participants the skills and knowledge to operate more commercially.
The programme covered topics including leadership and entrepreneurship skills, strategy development, market dynamics, risk management and social enterprise. It was a hugely successful venture and Surrey Business School continues to run similar programmes for other organisations who’ll benefit from tailor-made learning.
Ellie Rowland, Commercial Programme Director at Surrey County Council, recognised the need to think differently about generating revenue in a difficult economic climate. “Many local authorities are facing increasing demand for services but with decreasing funding.
“Traditional methods of cost reduction are no longer enough so we have to look at income generation in a controlled and measured way. The course forms part of the organisation’s strategy to embed a culture in which every member of staff sees the value in taking a more commercial approach.
Designed in partnership with Surrey Business School, the course addresses the specific aims of the organisation which sets it apart from an off-the-shelf alternative.”
EMMA LAW, Chief of Staff in Procurement, is part of a team that supports the delivery of procurement for three local authorities, accounting for nearly £2bn of third party spend each year. She explains why she participated, and the need to balance working commercially whilst managing risk.
“I was excited about doing a course that allowed me to sharpen my commercial skills and look at models to support and challenge my approach. This course had a really high calibre of session leaders who brought their knowledge to us in accessible and engaging ways.
track record in their field, combined teaching with practical exercises. This approach empowers participants to take initiative and effectively apply their new skills at work. The knowledge shared among delegates and relationships formed within the cohort also significantly enhances the learning experience.
“We are seeing more pressures globally and locally. In our sector we need to be mindful of risk –whether that’s from modern slavery in our supply chains or around funding. We need to enable ourselves to work more commercially, whilst being aware of those risks.”
Each session, conducted by an experienced academic with a proven
Emma describes how she’s benefitted from the course. “I got a lot out of all sessions, but two were standouts for personal value. The session where we looked at our personality and approach, and when we explored entrepreneurship and innovation. It’s easy when doing the same job to fall into patterns, and both these sessions really challenged us to move away from that.
“The course has given me insight into my impact on situations and I’ve been considering my approach and trying to maintain a more innovative take on work. I also made some brilliant networking connections which I’m continuing to use.”
If you’re interested in developing a customised training programme for your organisation, please contact Betty Jensen at b.jensen@ surrey.ac.uk.
INTERNATIONAL TRADE
Training Courses
Level up your international trade knowledge with our half-day training courses.
Surrey and North Hampshire LSIP recently hosted the latest instalment of the Future Skills Webinar Series, focused on ‘Accessing Untapped Talent.’
This session highlighted the often-overlooked pool of neurodiverse individuals, showcasing the positive outcomes employers have experienced when hiring from this diverse talent group.
Coinciding with National Inclusion Week, the webinar featured a panel of experts from Hampshire County Council, Surrey Choices, Surrey Lifelong Partnership, and Inclusion Education. The discussion centred on neurodiversity in the workplace, offering practical insights on how businesses can attract and support neurodiverse candidates.
Christina Earl, Head of Innovation and Business Development at Surrey Choices, emphasised a key message for employers, stating: “Hiring disabled individuals is not just about inclusion – it’s an opportunity to tap into a rich source of talent that can drive innovation and success within your organisation.”
Panellist Marie Greenhalgh, Innovation and Development Director (Social Impact) at Inclusion Education, highlighted a key message for employers. “When diversity is embraced, opportunity expands for everyone.”
The panel also addressed common misconceptions about hiring neurodiverse staff. Contrary to what some employers may believe, neurodiverse individuals often have the necessary skills for various roles but may require reasonable adjustments to realise their full potential.
Organisations like Surrey Choices, Surrey Lifelong Partnership, and Inclusion Education work to match candidates’ skills with employers’ needs. Another myth dispelled was the perceived high cost of accommodating neurodiverse employees.
Adjustments are typically affordable and bring long-term benefits, including improved staff retention and financial gains. The webinar offered valuable insights for employers, and the full recording can be viewed here, allowing viewers
to be able to incorporate lessons from the Accessing Untapped Talent webinar into their own hiring strategies.
To further support businesses in diversifying their workforce, Surrey Chambers of Commerce will be hosting the Solving the Recruitment Conundrum event on Thursday November 14th.
This in-person event aims to help employers explore various untapped talent pools and the support available to access them. By attending, businesses will gain valuable insights into hiring not only neurodiverse individuals but also other underrepresented groups, such as:
• Returners from care duties
• Early retirees
• People with disabilities
• Ex-military personnel
• Ex-offenders
• Refugees
The event will offer practical advice on how to engage with these hidden pools of talent, as well as opportunities for training both new and existing team members
With opportunities to network and hear firsthand experiences from people working within these categories, Solving the Recruitment Conundrum is a strategic opportunity for businesses committed to creating inclusive workplaces and accessing a wealth of untapped talent.
If you’d like to get in touch with Surrey Choices, contact employability@ surreychoices.com.
To find out ways of getting more involved with the LSIP and visit the LSIP website www.surrey-chambers. co.uk/future-skills-hub/ or email lsip@surrey-chambers.co.uk
18/12/2024
12PM - 3PM
Let’s celebrate the season together! Enjoy a festive 2-course meal, entertainment, networking, and games.
NEW MEMBERS
Surrey Chambers of Commerce welcomes its latest member companies
When you join Surrey Chambers of Commerce, your company details automatically get listed on this page alongside fellow new members. What a fantastic way to let the Surrey Business community know you are out there and ready to get those all-important connections.
Link Global Services Ltd (Inno-Lite) www.inno-lite.co.uk 020 8542 8268
The Kitchen Refurbishment Company www. thekitchenrefurbishmentcompany. co.uk 080 0193 2055
All new Chamber members are entitled to a one-off 50% discount for a company profile within this magazine. Contact lesley@platinummediagroup.co.uk for more details
If you are looking to join Surrey Chambers, then please do get in touch: sarah.butcher@surrey-chambers.co.uk or call 01483 735540. We look forward to hearing from you!
Majority of delegates welcome activities during away days
Foxhills study reveals that more than 70% of delegates welcome activities during away days
Foxhills Club and Resort, a premier destination for business retreats and corporate meetings, has unveiled the findings of its recent research on business meetings and away days.
Results of the survey highlights how hybrid working has effected what motivates employees, the importance of engaging off-site meetings, and preferences for meeting times and activities.
This aligns with Foxhills’ client trends, where meetings are often scheduled in the morning, followed by activities in the afternoon to maintain high energy levels and creativity throughout the day.
A reassuring 98% of those surveyed prefer to attend strategy days and brainstorming sessions off site. With a
after meetings, highlighting the importance of choosing venues that offer excellent food and drink options to encourage team members to build relationships outside of the workplace.
“The majority (58%) of respondents find mornings to be the best time for creative thinking”
More than 70% of those surveyed believe that delegates gain more from a full-day meeting that includes an activity, underscoring the necessity of incorporating team bonding and wellness exercises into away days to foster engagement and productivity. To counteract the notorious post-lunch dip, 43% favour an outdoor walk, highlighting the desire for fresh air and mental clarity after intensive strategy discussions.
Elsewhere in the study, the majority (58%) of respondents find mornings to be the best time for creative thinking.
change in environment likely fostering clarity and fresh perspectives on business matters, making off-site venues an essential choice for effective strategic planning.
Thursday emerges as the favourite day for strategy sessions, with 45% of respondents indicating it as their top choice. This opens up opportunities for venues to create special offerings and experiences around Thursdays to capitalise on this trend and extend stays into the weekend.
The research also reveals that 45% of attendees prefer to stay and socialise
Kelly Elton, Group Director of Sales at Foxhills said: “The results from our survey are really interesting and certainly correlate with the conversations that we’re having with our clients. The majority of people surveyed only have up to five off-site meetings annually, highlighting the importance of making business away days impactful and engaging. We are working hard with our array of activities on offer to create unique business days for our clients to inspire their teams.”
With more than 200 activities on site every week, Foxhills is committed to understanding and adapting to these trends to provide exceptional meeting and retreat experiences. The resort’s facilities are designed to foster creativity, engagement and team bonding, ensuring that every offsite meeting is productive and memorable.
www.foxhills.co.uk
❛❛ SIMPLY THE MOST EFFICIENT AND FUN EVENT IN THE REGION. THE ONLY NETWORKING EVENT I EVER ATTEND ❜❜ MERCEDES-BENZ
❛❛ THE PLATINUM CLUB IS A REALLY WELL ORGANISED NETWORKING GROUP, WITH THE HOSTS HELPING TO FACILITATE TO ENSURE WE ALWAYS MAKE USEFUL NEW CONTACTS AT EACH EVENT ❜❜ LLOYDS BANK
Brett North (Chairman, Gatwick Diamond Initiative); Simon Royston (Recruitment Lab); Fiona Shafer (MD, MDHUB), Maarten Hoffmann (MD, Platinum), George Kunnath (Roffey Park Institue)
Jen Bayford (Growth Animals Marketing) with Graham Gayler (Ridgeview Wine Estate)
Maarten Hoffmann (MD, Platinum) with Neil Laughton (MD, Laughton & Co)
Caraline Brown (Author) with Kate Partridge (DMH Stallard)
ALL BUSINESS IS BASED ON RELATIONSHIPS, AND PLATINUM GIVES YOU THE PLATFORM TO CREATE THE MEANINGFUL HUMAN CONNECTIONS THAT MATTER ❜❜ BAILEY & FRENCH
We meet once per month, excluding August. If you would like to attend an event, please get in touch info@platinummediagroup.co.uk
As annual membership is no longer required, we look forward to welcoming you to the most effective, enjoyable and lively networking group in the South
❛❛ WE SEE THE PLATINUM CLUB AS AN IMPORTANT AND INTEGRAL PART OF OUR BRAND AWARENESS STRATEGY, THROUGH INTERACTIONS WITH WELL CONNECTED BUSINESS PEOPLE AND OTHER INFLUENCERS. IT IS WELCOMING AND GREAT FUN TOO! ❜❜ MATTIOLI WOODS
Donna Holland (CEO, Rockinghorse); Nadia Cowdrey (DMH Stallard); Maribel Coles (Coles Business Development)
Alexandra Nott (Dehns Law); Maarten Hoffmann (MD, Platinum); Gemma King (Vivid Marketing)
Alice Dewar-Mills (Looking Glass Solutions); Milly Stone (Whitespace), Gina Hollands (Hollands Associates)
David Sheppard (Chairman, D-RisQ) and Abigail Owen (Senior Corporate Counsel, DMH Stallard)
Paula Ryan (Benchmark Financial Planning); Lucy Erdman-Samy (Irwin Mitchell); Stewart Payne (Handelsbanken)
Tim Creasy (Mattioli Woods Wealth) with Adrian Alexander (FRP Advisory)
John Clays (Mayo Wynne Baxter) and Courtney Frazer-Bates (Crunch Accounting)
Rosie Butler and Mia Bird (BN1 Arts)
BUFFETT CONTINUES TO SELL
Further to Surrey BM’s Big Story in issue 79, US investor Warren Buffett is now sitting on more than $325bn (£250bn) cash after continuing to unload billions of dollars worth of Apple and Bank of America shares this year, as well as collecting a steady stream of profits from all of Berkshire Hathaway’s assorted businesses without finding any major acquisitions.
Berkshire said it sold off about 100 million more Apple shares in the third quarter after halving its massive investment in the iPhone maker last quarter. The remaining stake of roughly 300 million shares, valued at $69.9bn at the end of September, remains Berkshire’s biggest single investment, but it has been cut drastically since the end of last year when it was worth $174.3bn.
TERMS SET FOR MOBILE PHONE MERGER
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has proposed a series of investments that could pave the way for the £15bn merger between Vodafone and Three to be finalised. The watchdog’s suggestions include enhancing the merged entity’s UK network, including 5G roll-out, and implementing short-term customer protections, as reported by City AM.
This development follows the CMA’s previous assertion in September that the planned merger could result in price hikes for millions of mobile users. However, it has now issued a remedies working paper to gather opinions on its proposed package’s effectiveness.
UK&WORLD NEWS
PUB GARDEN SMOKING PLANS DITCHED
The government is to ditch plans to ban smoking in the gardens of pubs and restaurants in England.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he had discussions with the hospitality sector and decided not to go ahead with the ban on smoking outdoors in pubs, bars and restaurants that was being considered.
However, the government is considering plans to make it illegal to smoke in children’s playgrounds and outside schools and hospitals.
The main focus of the updated Tobacco and Vapes Bill is to create a smoke-free generation across the UK by making it illegal for anyone currently aged 15 or under to ever buy cigarettes.
❛❛ I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by ❜❜
Douglas Adams
MORE PYLONS NEEDED
Nearly 620 miles (1,000km) of new power lines need to be built to meet the government’s clean energy plans, official energy planners have concluded. In its report, National Energy System Operator (NESO) said the government’s target to decarbonise electricity by 2030 was achievable, but a huge challenge.
It states that infrastructure for the electricity network will need to be built much faster than it has been over the last decade to meet the pledge. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said ministers were committed to significant reforms of the planning system to speed up new connections.
Miliband had asked the NESO to review ministers’ clean energy plans after Labour’s return to power at July’s general election.
❛❛ I don’t want yes-men around me. I want everyone to tell the truth. Even if it costs them their jobs ❜❜
Samuel Goldwyn
BOEING DISPUTE SETTLED
Boeing’s US West Coast factory workers in Seattle, USA, accepted a new contract offer, their union said, bringing an end to a bitter seven-week strike that halted most jet production and deepened a financial crisis at the troubled plane-maker.
The union said members voted 59% in favour of the new contract, which includes a 38% pay rise spread over
UNIVERSITY TUITION FEES TO RISE IN 2025
Tuition fees in England are to rise for the first time in eight years, after universities called for help with their finances. The annual cost of an undergraduate degree in England will go up from £9,250 to £9,535, in September 2025.
Undergraduate students will also be able to borrow more for day-to-day living costs. The government said the increases to tuition fees and maintenance loans are in line with inflation.
Warnings have been mounting about the state of university finances. Universities UK, which represents 141 universities, suggested they need to be able to charge tuition fees of £12,500 a year to meet their teaching costs.
four years, easing pressure on new Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, after two previous offers were voted down in recent weeks.
The end of the first strike in 16 years by Boeing’s largest union provides welcome relief for a company that has lurched from one setback to the next since a door panel blew off a near-new 737 MAX plane in mid-air in January.
LUCKIEST UK CASINOS REVEALED
New research has revealed the luckiest casinos in the UK, with Rendezvous Casino, Brighton ranking number four. Experts at Gambling ‘N Go analysed TripAdvisor reviews for all UK casinos. There are over 130 casinos in the UK, with 54 having at least 50 reviews on TripAdvisor. These reviews were analysed for the presence of over 180 keywords that suggest luck, such as ‘big payout’ and ‘huge win.’ The percentage of reviews featuring these terms was calculated for each casino to reveal which ones are the luckiest.
TRUMP RETURNS TO THE WHITE HOUSE
The US Presidential Election result has returned Donald Trump to the White House, him becoming only the second person to serve non-consecutive terms in office.
While much of the world outside the USA looked on in bewilderment, Trump’s victory was more decisive than that of 2016. This time around, he has won the
popular vote – something he failed to do in 2016 and 2020.
Given Trump’s well-expressed views on international issues such as climate change, international trade and the war in Ukraine, some consternation was being expressed in the immediate aftermath of his victory by political commentators as to what it will mean for Europe.
By Daniel Grainge, Partner and Head of Tax, Kreston Reeves
BUDGET SPECIAL: Top implications for businesses
After months of speculation, our first female Chancellor delivered the first Labour Budget for 14 years, badged as a Budget to ‘fix the foundations of our economy’.
Throughout her speech Rachel Reeves emphasised stability and the need to invest, invest, invest.
Whilst there were few business tax changes announced, they are being asked to carry much of the £40bn increase in taxes announced.
The combined impact of a 1.2% increase in Employer’s National Insurance and the increase in the National Minimum Wage by 6.7% from April 2025 will have a significant impact on employers. There appears to be stability in the corporate tax regime, which will be welcomed to provide businesses with certainty when making investment decisions.
As was announced in advance, VAT will be charged on independent school fees from January 2025.
EMPLOYER’S NATIONAL INSURANCE
Overall, the business tax announcements were relatively quiet, which will be a welcome relief as they will soon face an increase in the Employer’s National Insurance rate from 13.8% to 15%, combined with a reduction in threshold at which National Insurance is payable.
CORPORATE TAX UPDATE
The Chancellor has confirmed that the Government will continue to cap the Corporation Tax rate at 25% for the duration of the Parliament, making it the lowest rate in the G7. The 19% small profits rate will also be maintained. Additionally, there will be no changes to capital allowances available to companies, including the £1 million Annual Investment Allowance and Full Expensing Relief.
Recent years have seen many changes to the R&D scheme. The Chancellor has committed to maintaining the current rates of relief for the R&D merged scheme and the Enhanced R&D Intensive Scheme (ERIS). The only change is a correction to the tax legislation for the R&D intensity calculation.
The government will introduce legislation, effective on Budget day, to prevent avoidance of the Loans to Participators (s455) rules. This will ensure that the Targeted Anti-Avoidance Rule (TAAR) remains robust and effective against attempts by companies and their shareholders to avoid the charge.
Large groups with global revenue exceeding €750 million will need to consider the implementation of ‘Pillar 2’, as current legislation will be updated to align with the Global Anti-Base Erosion rules.
VAT ON PRIVATE SCHOOL FEES AND BOARDING SERVICES
The Chancellor confirmed that VAT will indeed apply to private schools from January 1st 2025.
FINANCE
Whilst there were no significant changes to the initial announcement from the Chancellor on July 29th, there was some interest in the Government’s response to the consultation, with a commitment to carve-out of the draft legislation, certain types of entity and education caught at present.
In addition, changes have been made to ease the rules on certain things such as nursery classes, these having previously been drafted as consisting of only pre-school age pupils, whereas the commitment is to change this to “wholly or almost wholly...”. Included in the carve-out is English as a Foreign Language, certain Higher Education tuition provided by a private school, and further education establishments that will not now be within the policy unless the majority of pupils are charged a fee.
STAMP DUTY LAND TAX ON RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY
❛❛ The combined impact of a 1.2% increase in Employer’s National Insurance and the increase in the National Minimum Wage by 6.7% from April 2025 will have a significant impact on employers. ❜❜
Companies purchasing residential property will be subject to a higher surcharge rate of Stamp Duty Land Tax, on purchases after October 31st 2024.
CONCLUSION
As a result of the Budget, larger businesses will need to budget carefully for the increase in Employer’s National Insurance and National Minimum Wage that both come into effect in April 2025. This may mean that prices need to increase to maintain profit margins.
The stability in the corporate tax regime, including tax relief on investment in plant and equipment, should allow businesses to plan for the longer-term and commit to investments that will improve productivity in the medium to long-term.
If the Autumn Budget has raised any questions or if you would like any further information or guidance, please contact Daniel Grainge, Partner and Head of Tax:
Call: +44 (0)33 0124 1399
Email: enquiries@krestonreeves.com
Visit: www.krestonreeves.com
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The value of investments can fall and you may get back less than you invested.
Roche Diagnostics partners with Sussex & Surrey IoT
Roche Diagnostics has announced its partnership with the Sussex and Surrey Institute of Technology (IoT). This collaboration is essential for addressing the industry's and community's skills challenges, especially in vital areas like science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), digital innovation, and sustainability.
Roche is one of the world’s largest biotech companies and a leading provider of in-vitro diagnostics. It moved to its purpose-built, modern UK head office in Burgess Hill in 2006 and increased its footprint in Mid-Sussex by building the National Distribution Centre—a stateof-the-art warehouse and logistics centre, officially opened in 2022.
The Sussex and Surrey IoT is an innovative educational initiative, bringing together the expertise of universities, colleges, and industry leaders across the region. This partnership helps fill the skills gap in fields such as engineering, manufacturing, and digital technologies. By working together, Roche helps to ensure that the curriculum meets the needs of today’s economy and prepares students for the jobs of tomorrow.
Hayet Achboun, Director of Business Sustainability, Roche Diagnostics Ltd comments, “At Roche, we know how important it is to invest in local talent. We have a highly-skilled workforce with approximately 260 staff living within
commuting distance of our office. By participating in the IoT, we help shape educational programs that match the current and future demands of our industry. This partnership shows our commitment to building a sustainable and forward-thinking workforce.”
Roche also hopes to offer students hands-on experiences and insights through workshops, guest lectures, and mentorship programmes. These activities prepare students for future careers and ensure a steady supply of skilled professionals for the local economy. The company’s experts will run masterclasses, conduct mock interviews, and provide valuable feedback to help students succeed.
This partnership is about contributing to the broader community and its economic growth and we encourage other companies to get involved.
Courses through the IoT are available at Crawley College, Chichester College, Nescot, University of Brighton, University of Sussex, and University of Chichester.
WINNERS ANNOUNCED
The winners of the 2024 Surrey Business Awards have been announced at a sensational gala event at G Live in Guildford on November 7th.
Business leaders from across the region attended the sell-out event, which was organised by Platinum Media Group, and hosted by comedian, Suzi Ruffell. The awards ceremony was made up of 16 categories, and recognised accomplishments made across all aspects of business, from personal successes to outstanding contributions.
Maarten Hoffmann, Managing Director of Platinum Media Group, said: “The awards are an opportunity to celebrate Surrey’s vibrant business community and to recognise the achievements of those who go above and beyond to deliver exceptional service, results and products.
“This year, we received a record number of entries from all business sizes and sectors in the county, with the standard of applications being very high. I’d like to congratulate all the winners and shortlisted finalists.”
The event charity partner was Sight For Surrey which offers lifelong support for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, partially sighted and deafblind. Attendees on the night helped to raise £8,500 which will help support its fight to improve lives across the region.
SPONSORED BY
❛❛ Wow, what an amazing night! Thank you so much for your hard work and all the effort that went into planning this event, which we must say was executed beautifully
Matt Hickey, The Health Value Alliance
THE WINNERS
ESG Champion Award SOMETHING BIG Sponsored by MHA
Business Growth Award PINKSHEEP MARKETING
Sponsored by Morr & Co
Future Talent of the Year
PARWEZ DILOO Bays Consulting
Sponsored by Nescot
Innovation of the Year DIREK
Sponsored by Menzies
Best New Business Award KICKX FOOTBALL
Sponsored by Surrey Chambers of Commerce
Businessperson of the Year SVEN HUGHES Enigma Strategic Communications Sponsored by Allica Bank
International Business of the Year HEMISPHERE FREIGHT SERVICES
Sponsored by Heathrow Airport
Company of the Year DIAMOND LOGISTICS
Sponsored by Business Surrey
Chamber Member of the Year SURREY BUSINESS SCHOOL
Sponsored by Surrey Chambers of Commerce
Large Business of the Year CROXSONS
Sponsored by DMH Stallard
Employer of the Year NESCOT
Sponsored by Giftpoint
Community Hero Award INCLUDE.ORG
Sponsored by Hilton Woking
Professional Services Award INVUSE
Sponsored by Enablists
Best Customer Service Award THE NAKED PHARMACY
Sponsored by Sandown Mercedes-Benz
SME Business of the Year THE NAKED PHARMACY
Sponsored by Partridge Muir & Warren
Property Developer of the Year ASPEN HOMES
Sponsored by Lloyds Bank
THE HIGHLIGHTS
❛❛ Thank you for such a brilliantly organised event.
Having a glimpse behind the scenes showed me just how well planned you and your team were – and that certainly came across in the quality of the ceremony, which was exceptional ❜❜ Catherine Fisher, Managing Partner, Morr & Co
To build a sustainable business, leaders must first manage the demands on their time. And that, says Andrew Griggs, Senior Partner at Kreston Reeves, is not always straightforward, particularly with evolving expectations.
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS: The leadership challenge
At the heart of any successful and sustainable business is a strong leadership team. That will start with the founder or business owners but extends to the entire C-suite and directors.
The demands on their time are immense and can be overwhelming. There is the need to be on top of all issues from managing domestic and international growth
to navigating economic and political uncertainty, embracing changing technology whilst ensuring an engaged and inclusive workplace, and all the time balancing short-term financial results with long-term sustainable growth.
As a business grows in size and complexity, so do the challenges that land on leaders’ desks. The ability to priori -
❛❛ A lot of businesses now have four generations in the workplace and their needs are very different. ❜❜
tise effectively, delegate and maintain focus becomes an increasingly important skill. But when it is your business, that you have built from the ground up and have been across the entire business, that is not always easy to do.
As the nature of the workforce changes, those time pressures are likely to become amplified. A lot of businesses now have four generations in the workplace and their needs are very different. Younger generations, broadly speaking, expect a flat corporate structure and
regular feedback. They want to be more involved, and that is likely to add greater pressure on leadership teams. The reward is hopefully more engaged and motivated team members.
With the complexity and uncertainty of the world today, coupled with the speed of change and expectations, leaders act more as a ‘connector’ and ‘interpreter’ of business challenges engaging and inspiring their people and teams.
Time is, as it perhaps always has been, the most precious resource business leaders have – and it is in increasingly short supply.
The actions of business leaders matter. They shape the way the business operates and its culture. For a start-up business, it is understandable and sensible for a founder to be all over the business – from finance, sales and marketing to HR. But that is not sustainable as a business scales up and evolves into, hopefully, a large and successful entity.
Successful business leaders quickly recognise that they cannot, and should not, do everything. They have no choice but to delegate. Here, however, a new challenge emerges, where is the line between micro-management and being too hands-off?
There is no straightforward answer, and it is often only after a period of trial and error that the natural balance is found.
It is vitally important that leaders carve time out of the diary to be ‘on top of the business’ and not just ‘immersed in the business’. That is the key to building a sustainable business. In my experience, this time needs to be planned and scheduled – if not, the diary will quickly be filled.
I have learnt a lot from a very good friend of mine who has built a large multi-franchise business. It is a deceptively simple lesson - it is ‘trust’. Those you appoint to senior positions need to be trusted to do their job, and that often means leaving them to do their job without interference.
• Because of the amount and pace of change and uncertainty they have been faced with over the past four years. New generations with different experiences are entering the workforce. People want to be included, to grow and develop. The world wants organisations to care more about society today and for the future.
Why… can’t you delegate people leadership to others?
• There is a change in expectation that leaders should be more accessible and visible. And you are the leader and want to lead in this area.
❛❛ Successful business leaders quickly recognise that they cannot, and should not, do everything. ❜❜
Of course, a good leader is there to provide direction, guidance and support, but recognise the talent in your business and empower them to do their job. They will invariably fly.
This will free up a surprising amount of your time, but it will do more than that – it will build a culture of leadership, encouragement and support across the business. And that is worth its weight in gold.
THE ‘FIVE WHYS’
Using the ‘five whys’ problem-solving technique can be a very useful and practical way to help discover the root cause of an issue and find a solution. An example of how this model can be adapted towards this issue is below.
Why… are there so many demands on your time?
• Because leaders are having to spend an increasing amount of time on people leadership. This is in addition to their day-to-day responsibilities.
Why… is there this greater focus on people leadership?
• Because the nature of the workforce and their expectations as well as that of the world have changed. Why… have the expectations of people and the world changed?
Why… can’t you delegate other more traditional aspects of leadership or other areas of people engagement to others?
• You can… Take a step back and review what can be delegated to someone else and allocate clear lines of responsibilities.
The expectation of leaders has evolved to be much more people and socially focused than it has been in the past. Leaders cannot control all the areas they always have done as there is so much more an organisation now needs to deal with. They need to have a broader perspective and create an environment, and people they can trust, to help make things happen.
For or more information on how Kreston Reeves works alongside clients to understand their goals and help them achieve their ambitions, please contact Andrew Griggs, Senior Partner:
Call: +44 (0)33 0124 1399
Email: enquiries@krestonreeves.com
Visit: www.krestonreeves.com
❛❛ I have a deep passion and strong belief in the work we do at Roffey Park. Our clients are truly amazing to work with and to have become CEO is a genuine honour for me ❜❜
The Roffey Park Institute has been a fixture on the business scene of the South East for many years; with Dr Arlene Egan now as its CEO.
Roffey Park offers exceptional facilities in the heart of rural Sussex to companies of all sizes and provides digital, blended and face-to-face learning, underpinned by 75 years of research and practice.
It is a centre of expertise in organisational development and a pioneer of action learning and, for the last 30 years, their MSc in People and Organisational Development has been at the forefront of developing the practice and field of OD which enables people and organisations to thrive.
Maarten Hoffmann sat down with Dr Egan to explore her background and the future plans for the Institute.
DR ARLENE EGAN CEO, ROFFEY PARK
Maarten Hoffmann: Please give me some of your personal background –where you are from, previous roles, your qualifications and what led you into the CEO role at RP?
Arlene Egan: Well, I am from Ireland and live in Dublin, so I get to travel over to the UK quite a bit with my CEO role – as well as many other exotic places.
My professional career began back in college, where I studied psychology, specialising in sports and cognitive psychology. This combination gave me a unique perspective on high performance across a range of domains as well as a deep understanding of how thinking and performance are linked.
I have worked with leaders in different spheres on critical thinking in leadership – there is always something to learn there, especially in such uncertain economic times.
I have spent decades in executive education and leadership roles, I have sat on boards across various industries and, as well as that, I am a coach, author and business mentor.
I began working in Roffey Park in 2019, where I held different senior roles and, when the opportunity to become the CEO came up in 2022, I jumped at it. I have a deep passion and strong belief in the work we do at Roffey Park. Our clients are truly amazing to work with and to have become CEO is a genuine honour for me. I adore my job and the team at Roffey Park.
MH: You have a magnificent venue, can you give me some details of the property and how it operates?
AE: The venue is not only spectacular, it’s very special. There is a distinct feeling that you get here that is hard to explain. It is situated in a beautiful setting in West Sussex, and participants and clients describe it as a learning retreat.
THE HOTEL AND ACCOMMODATION
It is literally a space to think, to connect and to develop. The venue offers a range of services, with the majority of clients coming from the South East to use our space for their own development and training days. The fact that we have 60 bedrooms and an amazing restaurant, as well as a pool and gym, means that the venue is very versatile. Roffey Park delivers some of its training to clients here also. The best thing to do, is to drop by and see what it’s like. The amazing team there is always happy to show people around the venue and discuss how they can help.
MH: Roffey Park speaks of many aspects of learning underpinned by 75 years of research and practice – can you outline the history of RP and said research?
AE: Roffey Park Institute began after World War II, when soldiers returned from the war to a changed world. Roffey Park Institute pioneered a new way of holistic development, much of which was based on the concept of good quality conversations and peer learning. A strong reputation developed for our ability to deliver relevant, impactful leadership and management development.
As well as helping organisations that are going through change, whether planned or emergent, we were established to help organisations to deliver what matters to their key stakeholders, and this remains our focus today. We also have a strong history of research, with many of our core papers available
on our website. We have conducted research into topics that matter to organisations; for example, how to build trust and resilience and, more recently, an international study on female leadership.
The research we conduct is often done for, or in collaboration with, organisations interested in understanding more about a specific topic relating to organisations and its people.
MH: You offer Organisational Design consultancy services, among many other courses. How does this work for external companies that might be interested in such?
AE: We actually work with organisations in both organisational development and design. In terms of development, the type of work we typically support organisations with ranges from top tier development, strategic thinking, refreshing organisational culture or values and talent retention strategies.
In the organisational design space, we help organisations to assess the effectiveness of how they are set up to work, and then to create and implement a plan for optimising organisational design.
Organisational change and transformation is extremely prevalent both across sectors and across the globe, where organisations know that something is not quite right and change is needed to enhance performance.
❛❛ We were established to help organisations to deliver what matters to their key stakeholders, and this remains our focus today ❜❜
THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING FACILITIES
Yet, organisations often don’t know where to start. This is a complex task for anyone. To support this at an early stage we offer “The Roffey Park Day,” which is a day with one of our consultants to help you to gain clarity on how you should be thinking about your organisational design and development.
This year, there has been a higher -than-average number of mergers and acquisitions, and we also help leadership teams involved here to develop and implement a post integration plan. This can help productivity, cultural alignment and minimise staff disruption, and ultimately ease the transition for all.
Our organisational development and design offering is becoming very popular with our clients, and no two organisations that we work in are ever the same. We have a team of highly skilled and
experienced consultants that partner with clients and support them on their change journey.
MH: Are Roffey Park services available to companies only and if not, how does this benefit the individual?
AE: While the majority of our services are used by organisations, we have a range of open programmes that anyone can enrol in. You can find details of these on our website. We also run free events throughout the year which we call our “Navigator” events and anyone can register to attend these.
MH: The building is magnificent. Is it available for local companies to hire as a venue?
AE: Absolutely. Businesses, whether local or further afield, can hire rooms for training or weekend-away packages. We have rooms of different sizes to cater for small or large groups or conferences. We also have some offices that we rent out to small businesses and start-ups in our hub. This is a growing community within our venue.
As CEO my ambition is to continue to build on the great work that Roffey Park has been doing for nearly 80 years. We work across sectors including pharma, tech, finance, retail, health, government, manufacturing, construction and education.
We understand the connection between organisational design and performance and leadership approach and performance and we are very passionate about our work. We are looking forward to working with more clients and creating solutions for them that help them to deliver what matters.
www.roffeypark.com
Roffey Park Institute Forest Road, Horsham RH12 4TB
❛❛ As CEO my ambition is to continue to build on the great work that Roffey Park has been doing for nearly 80 years ❜❜
By Helen Mead, Partner in the Corporate Team, at DMH Stallard
TIME FOR A PE BOUNCEBACK?
High interest rates (debt expensive), lower transaction deal values (most sub £10m regionally), and global uncertainty, have led to a reduction in private equity (PE) deals over the past three years. PE investors aim to turn or sell investee companies and groups after three to five years. Recently, many PE investors have held their investments longer.
However, signs are more positive, with interest rates starting to fall, global uncertainty reducing a little, and deal values rising. We are seeing predominantly corporate buyers, and some non-PE investment buyers investing in the UK from Europe. The latter are like PE, but hold businesses for the medium to long term in order to generate growth and synergies from a wider group. We are also now seeing a sign that PE deals are coming back, building some much-needed momentum. Moreover, some sectors that have been quiet, are beginning to recover.
We recently sold Martin Randall Travel to Piper Private Equity. This is the first PE travel deal we have completed for a while, although we have other deals
in the pipeline. Travel is a sector I have worked on throughout my career, and we are an ABTA partner firm, supporting on regulatory issues. The sale to Piper Private Equity shows confidence in the travel market as, of course, PE requires significant projected returns on investment to justify their involvement in a business.
Other sectors we have seen activity in are the care sector, non-urgent ambulance (E-Zec Medical Transport to Cairngorm Capital Partners), leisure (Whyte Bikes to Cairngorm Capital Partners), Wi-Fi cable installation (Lightning Fibre backed by the Foresight Group). We are expecting continued interest in Tech and AI.
WHICH BUSINESSES SUIT PRIVATE EQUITY?
There are some requirements common to businesses which successfully attract PE, irrespective of sector. Target
businesses need to be of a certain size, to absorb the additional costs of a PE investor and provide the resilience PE investors require. Although there is no absolute rule, up to £10m revenue businesses will typically use angel investors, asset finance or other forms of borrowing.
Once one goes upward of £10m revenue with healthy profits, then PE becomes an option. PE investors operate at different levels of the market, from growing entrepreneurial businesses to global pre-‘initial public offering’ businesses. Investors will often sell target businesses to one another in secondary or tertiary deals, as those target businesses grow and the coaching/ capital requirement and connections change.
Management teams are critical to any PE investor. Management is required to invest personally (‘skin in the game’)
❛❛ Signs are more positive, with interest rates starting to fall, global uncertainty reducing a little, and deal values rising ❜❜
❛❛ Building an effective management team can take time, as you need experience and the ability to move a business onto its next stage of growth ❜❜
and will warrant a business plan. The management team will deliver the growth the investor needs to achieve its return.
Building an effective management team can take time, as you need experience and the ability to move a business onto its next stage of growth. Often businesses will work with business coaches to find and build a management team ahead of an exit or PE investment, which can take several years.
Typically, PE is used to transition a business into a new level of growth. This may be moving from a regional to national market, developing technology, or to become more international/setting up overseas subsidiaries.
THE IMMEDIATE
FUTURE
2023/24 has been challenging for PE, but for businesses interested in this as a route to growth or extracting value, now is the time to develop plans. Once there is certainty following the Budget, we believe the PE sector will begin to move, both realising investments and making new investment. We see plenty of ambitious businesses in the South
NEW PRIVATE EQUITY EXPERTISE
DMH Stallard is excited to announce a new partner to the DMH Stallard team, with Emma Boorman joining from Illume, a consultancy business. In so doing, she joins her former colleague from Illume, Kate Partridge. Emma has worked as a lawyer, then investment director for Barclays Ventures, then as senior legal counsel for CVC Capital Partners.
While many of us have advised shareholders and target companies on PE deals, Emma has experience inside PE businesses, and can share her knowledge of how those businesses work, the support and value PE can add and how and when investor rights get exercised in practice.
East who fit the PE model of ambition and future growth, but not all have their strategic plans or management teams in place.
As a firm, DMH Stallard is sponsoring the Private Equity / Venture Capital Deal of the Year category in this year’s Insider’s South East Dealmakers Awards. Submissions are due in by the November 7th, with the awards ceremony taking place in February 2025. We look forward to seeing the strength of
submissions and the variety of Private Equity deals that will have been completed this year in our region.
Helen Mead, Partner in the Corporate Team, at DMH Stallard www.dmhstallard.com
The Sussex Business Awards has announced its finalists for 2024.
Sussex Business Awards 2024 FINALISTS ANNOUNCED
The annual awards, celebrating 36 years in 2024, continues to recognise the remarkable achievements of businesses and individuals across the region. Finalists were meticulously chosen by a distinguished panel of judges, consisting of industry experts and influential business leaders.
The judging process involved sifting through hundreds of entries, prescores, face-to-face interviews, visits and a judges’ meeting at Roffey Park in Horsham.
Maarten Hoffmann, organiser of the event and Managing Director of Platinum Media Group, comments: “Once again, we received a record number of entries and it was an immense challenge for judges to select just five finalists per category.
“Those who have made the shortlist exemplifying the very best of Sussex’s tenacious, entrepreneurial spirit – we look forward to recognising these
achievements at the spectacular ceremony in December.”
Winners will be unveiled at a highly anticipated gala dinner on December 5th at The Grand Brighton. It promises to be a spectacular evening of celebration, networking, and recognition, attended by business leaders and esteemed guests from the across the county.
❛❛ Those who have made the shortlist exemplifying the very best of Sussex’s tenacious, entrepreneurial spirit ❜❜
More than an airport, Gatwick recently hosted its first innovation summit
LONDON GATWICK: Inaugural innovation summit
Local and regional businesses joined universities, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Innovate UK, Chambers of Commerce and global companies at London Gatwick’s inaugural Innovation Summit on September 27th.
The Future Airports event was hosted at London Gatwick’s STEM Centre, with representatives from more than 50 organisations hearing from American technology company Nvidia’s Head of Smart Cities and Spaces, David Gregory.
London Gatwick’s Head of Innovation, Abhi Chacko, spoke about the airport’s innovation approach and collaboration with airlines and technology partners to drive new ideas, along with industry professionals from the likes of VINCI, easyJet and IAG.
Businesses across the region learnt about future opportunities for working with London Gatwick as the airport
looks for innovative ways to create a more seamless passenger experience and other opportunities within the aviation industry.
❛❛ The Innovation Summit proved a fantastic opportunity for London Gatwick to collaborate with airlines and other partners across the industry ❜❜
Abhi Chacko comments, “The Innovation Summit proved a fantastic opportunity for London Gatwick to collaborate with airlines and other partners across the industry, sharing progress and exploring new ideas to shape the future of aviation. We have a strong reputation in the industry for our innovative solutions to improve operational efficiency and enhance passenger experience.
“We were delighted to welcome such a broad range of organisations to the airport, including a number of businesses from across Sussex, Surrey, Kent and London, and look forward to developing
relationships to continue working together.”
Chris Hurley, Director of Brighton-based company Airware, says, “It was great to be at the first London Gatwick Innovation Summit and learn more about the different transformational solutions that are being developed and tested.
“London Gatwick has been an integral innovation partner and has enabled Airware to demonstrate the capabilities of our next generation of mobile passenger processing technologies to airports, airlines, ground handlers and other industry stakeholders from across the globe. With support from the innovation team, we have launched the solution in a live environment and continue to prove that new innovations start at Gatwick.”
London Gatwick – a VINCI Airports Innovation Centre of Excellence - is working on a range of pioneering projects, including app-driven passenger processing, autonomous vehicles, real-time airfield monitoring, and Smart Stand.
If successful, the latter – an ambitious, first-of-its-kind trial in partnership with easyJet – will enable a controller to manage the aircraft turn from a control room, helping reduce flight delays and improving the passenger experience.
Abhi Chacko, Head of Innovation at London Gatwick, presenting at the inaugural Innovation Summit
GATWICK GAINS ACCESSIBILITY ACCREDITATION
London Gatwick has become the first UK airport to receive Airports Council International’s (ACI) Level 1 Accessibility Enhancement Accreditation. It recognises London Gatwick’s commitment to accessibility services through its strategy, policies, and initiatives.
The Level 1 Accessibility Enhancement Accreditation is designed to help airports measure, evaluate and improve their accessibility management and culture and it is the only international assessment or accreditation programme dedicated to airport accessibility for passengers with disabilities.
“We have worked hard to introduce initiatives in recent years to improve our accessibility and are extremely proud to lead the way with several projects. We will continue to work with key industry partners and experts to make further advancements, to achieve our vision to be the airport for everyone whatever your journey.”
Olivier Jankovec, Director General, ACI EUROPE adds: “We're delighted that ACI EUROPE member London Gatwick has received accreditation for the ACI Accessibility Enhancement Accreditation Programme. The AEA programme provides a continuous improvement path for airports regarding accessibility for passengers with disabilities.
❛❛ The accreditation recognises London Gatwick’s commitment to improving accessibility and enhancing the experiences of disabled passengers. ❜❜
The accreditation forms part of a wider programme that provides a continuous path of improvement for all airports’ accessibility for passengers with disabilities.
Anna-Ruth Cockerham, Accessibility Manager, London Gatwick says: “We are delighted to be celebrated by ACI for our work in improving accessibility across London Gatwick for passengers. The accreditation recognises London Gatwick’s commitment to improving accessibility and enhancing the experiences of disabled passengers.
London Gatwick, part of the VINCI Airports’ network, has been a trailblazer in accessibility initiatives for several years. The airport was the first in the UK to open a sensory room for passengers in 2018 and was the birthplace of the now widely recognised Sunflower Lanyard scheme, supporting people with hidden disabilities.
London Gatwick has also recently launched a series of free, bespoke detailed access guides, in partnership with AccessAble, helping passengers navigate more easily, safely and confidently through the airport.
“As highlighted in our recently published guidance on 'Assisting Passengers with Non-Visible Disabilities', European airports have a long-standing track record of caring for their most vulnerable passengers and visitors. This is exemplified in Gatwick achieving AEA accreditation, and we hope to see more European airports following their path.”
London Gatwick is investing in its longterm future. The examination phase of the airport’s planning application to bring its existing Northern Runway into routine use has now concluded, with a decision expected to follow in early 2025. London Gatwick’s low-impact plan will improve resilience, reduce delays, and provide a significant boost to the national and regional economy by supporting trade, tourism, and new jobs.
Anna-Ruth Cockerham, Accessibility Manager at London Gatwick (centre) alongside Claire Donnellan, Director of Customer Centric Consulting (left) and William DeFeis, Senior Management Analyst at The Port Authority of NY and NJ
NEW ROUND OF GATWICK FOUNDATION FUNDING ANNOUNCED
A total of 18 groups across the region benefitted from a financial boost from the London Gatwick Foundation Fund which they will use to pay for staff and core costs or to launch new services.
In Kent, the good causes which received funding were Life and Soul Youth Work in Tunbridge Wells, which secured £6,000 to put towards its annual core costs; St Philip's Church Community Larder in Tunbridge Wells was given a £5,000 donation towards the cost of its food larder; and Compaid Trust in Tunbridge Wells received £4,000 towards its annual core costs.
Sarah Finch, CEO, Life and Soul comments, “We are so grateful to the London Gatwick Foundation Fund for its generous grant towards the work of Life & Soul. Demand for our services is increasing rapidly and this money will go a long way towards enabling us to train and deploy new volunteer mentors and to provide mentoring for young people in more schools.”
❛❛ We love making a difference to our local community through the London Gatwick Foundation Fund, which has helped hundreds of good causes over the years. ❜❜
Melanie
Wrightson, Stakeholder Engagement Manager at London Gatwick
Restore Counselling Training and Related Services in Tunbridge Wells benefitted from £2,500 which will help pay for the supervision costs of counsellors; Therapeutic Equine Assisted Learning CIC in Edenbridge and Sevenoaks was given a £5,000 donation towards its annual core costs; Toc H High Brooms will use £5,000 to provide support for low-income families from its hub in the village; and Tonbridge Counselling Service received £2,500 for funding an assisted places scheme.
In Surrey, Amber Foundation will put Stakeholder Engagement Manager at London Gatwick £7,000 of funding towards providing mental health support
to vulnerable young adults experiencing homelessness; St Mark’s Church, Tattenham Corner, will spend its £7,000 of funding on providing a children and family worker to serve deprived areas of East Surrey; and YMCA East Surrey received nearly £6,700 to provide inclusive exercise opportunities to people in East Surrey with disabilities.
Home-Start Epsom, Ewell & Banstead (HSEEB) will use its £3,500 of funding to pay for some of its 2024 core costs; and mental health charity Mind of the Student has received £3,000, which it will use to provide workshops in secondary schools in Surrey, allowing it to reach 2,000 more young people in the
Park Centre, Burgess Hill
YMCA East Surrey
Home-Start Epsom, Ewell & Banstead (HSEEB) will use its £3,500 from the London Gatwick Foundation Fund to pay for some of its 2024 core costs.
county. Be Me Project, which delivers school and community courses, was given £2,320 to provide mental health support groups in schools in Surrey.
In Sussex, food poverty charity Free Shop Crawley received £7,640 to put towards its core costs. Park Centre in Burgess Hill benefitted from nearly £9,900 to pay for the staff costs of a community development officer as it puts together an exciting plan to transform an historic building into a multi-use centre for the community.
Melanie Wrightson, Stakeholder Engagement Manager at London Gatwick, says: “We love making a difference to our local community through the London Gatwick Foundation Fund, which has helped hundreds of good causes over the years.
local groups who work to fight social isolation and tackle disadvantage, raise aspirations and develop skills, improve health and wellbeing, and support children and young people.
❛❛ Each year, there are three rounds of grants, totalling £300,000, which are made available to beneficiaries in Sussex, Surrey and Kent ❜❜
Befriended will use £5,000 of funding to pay for the role of an operational leader, as it works to end loneliness and isolation amongst older people living in Mid-Sussex.
Hope into Action: Mid Sussex will spend £5,000 on staff costs as it continues to deliver high quality supported accommodation for men, women, families and refugees who have been homeless; while Mid-Sussex Older People's Council will use £2,500 of funding to hold free community events.
“We can’t wait to hear updates from the charities and community projects we have supported this year about their completed projects. We encourage all community groups and charities to apply for the next round of funding to enable us to lend a helping hand.”
The London Gatwick Foundation Fund was set up in 2016 to award funding to
Each year, there are three rounds of grants, totalling £300,000, which are made available to beneficiaries in Sussex across Crawley, Horsham, Mid Sussex and Wealden; in Surrey across Reigate & Banstead, Tandridge and Mole Valley, and in Kent across Tonbridge & Malling, Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks.
The London Gatwick Foundation Fund is managed on behalf of London Gatwick by individual Community Foundations for Kent, Sussex and Surrey.
To find out more please visit the Gatwick Foundation Fund –www.gatwickairport.com/company/ community/funding.html
Jonathan Porter, Partner, Mayo Wynne Baxter
Who is on your Christmas card list?
I don’t have a desk anymore. In fact, I don’t even have a place that I call my office. But if I did, you would no doubt look at me, sat there, and think I am very boring. For I would have been sitting at the same, now non-existent, desk in my, now non-existent, office for nearly quarter of a century.
I would be the first to agree with those of you who say I’m boring for doing that, but I also reflect on it with great pleasure.
I have absolutely no doubt that had I been writing this from my tenth (hopefully still non-existent) desk, in my tenth (hopefully still non-existent) office, I would have earned far more than I have done and not be thought of as boring, but I am completely at peace with my decisions, for I know exactly why I am still in the same (now less physical) place than when I arrived, as a nervous 22 year-old with gel in his hair, that was the same colour as his eyebrows.
People.
than a minute (a good barometer). If you have time to do that, and read on, feel free.
Of course, when I first walked into an actual office and sat down at my actual desk all those years ago, I did not know that some of the people I would work with would be quite so brilliant. Only if
that has already started playing on my mind is the only thing I hate about it –writing Christmas cards. I don’t send Christmas cards to clients, I only send them to friends.
As a result of the way I, and my team, work (it is a very different high performance, high service level style), we only act for people who are returning to me, or are recommended to me by people I know. The problem is that they do seem to become friends, but to me that that is really important (but a pain when it comes to Christmas as the list is getting out of control).
❛❛ What is ever more apparent to me though is how important it is for my clients that I continue to change as I learn more from people I meet ❜❜
you work in an industry, whether that is doing what I do, or whatever you do, you only get to know that there is a massive difference in the quality of people and service, through experience.
I honestly don’t mind if you stop reading now, as long as you use the time to think about the people you have met along your way, and how they have changed you. Some will be good, some will be bad. Most will not have changed you at all, a few will make you smile for more
The early days showed me, and instilled in me, what hard work looked like. I loved working with them, and I now love the people who work with me (they are not boring!).
Playing an equally important role in me ‘staying put’ are my clients. I love Christmas (bear with me), but one thing
What is ever more apparent to me though is how important it is for my clients that I continue to change as I learn more from the people that I meet along the way.
Recently two people stand out to me that have helped me improve, and therefore benefitted my clients.
The first is the person who is in charge of the group of which Mayo Wynne Baxter are members (AMPA – Google it!). The second is a teacher at our daughter’s school. On the face of it, they have little in common. One is from an accountancy background, working in a very traditionally corporate world, the other is in academia. Both, though, are
the very best at what they do (I appreciate everyone will say that they have an amazing teacher that they can think of, but I promise you, this one is on a different level). Essentially though what they make sure they do is get the very best out of everyone they are responsible for, and if they achieve that, success naturally follows.
WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH LAWYERS?
I do not care which solicitor you use. My boss wants me to say it should be Mayo Wynne Baxter, but as I have established above, the commercial rewards have rather passed me by. For me, I want you to have your lawyer on your Christmas card list, whoever that may be.
They should only warrant that if they display the traits that I have been learning, and adapting, from the two people mentioned above.
• Communication – I despair at the hours my team spend chasing third parties to do something, or tell us what is going on. What you should never have to do though is chase your lawyer. Do they appreciate the importance of calling, or emailing, you particularly on a Friday afternoon, even if it is to say “nothing to worry about”, or “I haven’t had a reply”?
• Energy – both of the people I mention have endless energy and drive, and will do even the smallest thing to try and get the best out of a person. They don’t wait
❛❛ I want you to have your lawyer on your Christmas card list... ❜❜
for things to come to them. They are leaders. For me, and my team, this is ensuring we are intense and proactive, not letting days drift by.
• Kindness – I know this will sound funny for a trait that lawyers should have, but my two heroes above, I have noticed, are incredibly kind, whether that is to the people working for them, or to their pupils. I and my team now constantly challenge each other as to how we would want to be treated if we were the client, and then go above and beyond that where we can.
I could waffle on for days about this, but I had better not. I will though challenge you to answer a few questions in readiness for when you next need to seek the help of a lawyer (feel free to use it for any other profession as well if you so choose), whoever they may be:
1. How do you feel when you receive an email, or need to contact them – if the thought of that does not make you smile, or even worse if your stomach sinks at the thought of an email popping up with their name on or having to speak to them, then please change. There are special people out there.
2. Is there room on your Christmas card list? If your lawyer is not already on there, and you have used someone in the past, why not? Do not settle for someone who does not pass that test, even if you feel you can justify it to yourself saying “we’ve always used them”. That, to my mind, is truly boring.
Jonathan Porter, Partner, Mayo Wynne Baxter jporter@mayowynnebaxter.co.uk
www.mayowynnebaxter.co.uk
Millie
Green of MDHUB sat down with Josh O'Riordan Managing Director at Brightec to hear more about his role and how he has fostered an award-winning working culture for his team
The future's Brightec
When Andy Ferret, Founding Director of Shoreham-based app development agency, Brightec, took a 12-week sabbatical to help himself recuperate after 14 years running the agency, Josh O’Riordan stepped into his shoes to run the company.
Now in his tenth year at Brightec, Josh is the Managing Director. Known and appreciated for his work ethic and his boundless energy and countless hobbies, we asked how he managed it all.
“I love learning new things, which is probably why I have so many hobbies. I have had to learn to slow that down over the years. Nowadays, it's more about aligning the other things I do to personal values.” This includes volunteering alongside his wife at their local food bank, and competing in strongman competitions.
ready. To prepare, they took not just the practical steps of handing over regular duties and establishing procedures, but also ensured that Josh had adequate support. He invested in executive coaching with Steve Boon, a trusted advisor whom he met with regularly to help make sense of, expalin and process the changes in the company that the team were going through.
There are always wobbles and worries that bubble up when someone at the top of an organisation leaves, even temporarily. Josh worked with each team member to support them through their individual experience. Regular check-ins and making himself available to talk were paramount to ensuring everyone felt supported.
❛❛ I love learning new things, which is probably why I have so many hobbies ❜❜
Josh has worked hard to encourage his team to maintain a healthy relationship with work. The company recently won Best Employee Development Programme at the Company Culture Awards for an incredible career framework developed by its Head of Engineering.
Josh described how the framework allowed people to know where they were at in their career, how they could move to the next piece, how they could support them in doing that and what they would need to learn. This great initiative has proved a brilliant tool for employee retention and goal setting.
When Andy Ferrett announced his desire to take a break, Josh had to be
Josh explains, “He helped me get the team through that, and it helped me understand what my strengths and weaknesses were as a leader – and ultimately face them head-on and improve myself.”
Executive coaching isn't the only support Josh has benefitted from over the last few years. Phil Green from MDHub has played a vital role with Brightec, acting in a non-executive capacity to bring real wisdom and experience to help shape the company's future and structure, and Josh has loved working closely with Phil. “His unique ability to bring together financial expertise, personal connection, and wider context has been invaluable.”
For his part, workgroups with MDHUB provided Josh a safe place to ask questions and share concerns in a confidential and supportive environment. The invaluable, outside perspective of other business owners asking candid questions was an essential part of Josh’s support system. The workgroups have also proved an unexpected source of inspiration for Brightec.
“One of the things that we've taken in is that every working group session ends with a happiness score, out of ten. For instance, ‘how are you doing at the moment?’
“We’ve taken that concept and created a Slackbot that asks all of our staff that on a daily basis.” This sends a daily report to Josh and Brightec’s People Operations Lead, Caz, who monitors levels and checks in with employees. This helps the senior leadership team maintain a better overview of the team’s happiness.
Josh is excited for Brightec’s future. “We have staff who are actively volunteering for charities. Over the next six months, we're rolling out a scheme where everyone has three days where they can do that – fully paid.”
Brightec continues to develop its clients’ award-winning apps, such as
❛❛ Workgroups with MDHUB provided Josh a safe place to ask questions and share concerns in a confidential and supportive environment ❜❜
the Virgin Trains Ticketing app and its apps for RM Education, a company that brings coding and computer science into schools with interactive robotics.
Regarding how he feels working trends will develop, AI was a big topic of conversation. “I wouldn’t be suprised if we don’t see the kind of mass step change that the media has been touting over the next few years, and it will be more things like tooling that slowly roll out.”
The biggest change that Josh anticipates is the perception of ‘soft skills’ in business. “I have a slight worry that the biggest differentiator in work is shifting from competency, negotiation skills, or whether it will be the effort being put into things that would have been seen as basic, like meeting in person or phoning someone.
“Those things are getting harder to teach as we have become more abstract and remote. Remote work is good for some people, but it's not a net positive in some ways. We are made for human connection and engagement.”
While the future of the working world is uncertain, one thing remains clear: a happy team does better work. MDHUB is looking forward to seeing more from Josh and from Brightec in 2025 as its continues to move from strength to strength.
www.mdhub.co.uk www.brightec.co.uk
Sussex Contemporary Art exhibition opens in Newhaven
The Sussex Contemporary opened its doors at The Marine Workshops in Newhaven in mid-October with a VIP private view event attended by over 180 guests.
The event marked the opening of the annual art exhibition that celebrates living Sussex artists, now in its third year. Professional and amateur artists were invited to submit artwork that answered
this year’s theme – duality. Nearly 1,500 artworks were entered from artists who were either born in Sussex, educated in Sussex or currently work in Sussex.
An independent judging panel made up of internationally renowned artists Walter Bailey; Steph Fuller , CEO of Ditchling Museum of Arts + Crafts; and arts journalist, presenter and author Maev Kennedy, had the difficult task of selecting the artwork for the exhibition. They chose 170 artworks including a wide range of media from paintings to sculptures which are now on display in the free-to-enter exhibition in Newhaven.
“We were blown away by both the quality and quantity of entries this year.” says Jason Edge, Managing Director
Jo Myles, Milo Osborn – Winner of The Photography Prize 2024 and Jason Edge
Alexander Johnson – Winner of The ROSA Prize
A number of prize winners were announced on the night and the artists were there to accept their awards.
Milo Osborn – The Photography Prize
Alexander Johnson – The ROSA Prize
Rehanna Rose – The Seawhite Prize
Grace Dunford – The Business of Art Prize
Rosie Mortimer – The Artelium Artefact Prize
of Sussex Contemporary. “The creative talent in Sussex is phenomenal.”
“It was such a joy to curate,” adds Jo Myles, Creative Director of Sussex Contemporary. “It is marvellous to have this gallery space to show these amazing works.”
The BN9 Gallery sits on the top floor of the iconic Marine Workshops in Newhaven with commanding views across the Downs and out to sea. The venue for the exhibition was provided by Lewes District Council who have long been supporters of local artists.
Visitors to the exhibition had the opportunity to vote for their favourite artwork and the one with the most votes will win The People’s Choice Prize worth £750 to the winning artist.
Jo Myles, Grace Dunford – Winner of The Business of Art Prize and Jason Edge
Mark Collins and Julie Bretland from Artelium Wine Estate
Rehanna Rose – Winner of The Seawhite Prize 2024
The University of Brighton School of Business & Law has a new Dean. We were delighted to sit down with Professor Catherine Robinson to learn who she is, where she came from and what new elements she might bring to the School
INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR
CATHERINE ROBINSON
DEAN, UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON SCHOOL OF BUSINESS & LAW
❛❛ Business Schools are very much about embracing change. Ensuring that our curriculum is up to date and relevant is a very important part of my job ❜❜
Welcome to Brighton, Catherine. Can you tell us about your previous roles and experience and what do you think of Brighton as a City?
I have joined Brighton after ten years in the Business School at the University of Kent. In previous roles, I’ve been based in Portsmouth and Swansea. I have to say, it is wonderful to be back in a seaside community again. There’s just something about it – a deep breath of sea air and almost anything feels possible!
My previous role at Kent was as the Deputy Dean, leading on Accreditations in the Business School. The Brighton School of Business & Law is on the accreditation journey also, with recent success in achieving AACSB – we do love an acronym! Essentially, this puts Brighton in the top 6% of Business Schools globally.
It signals our commitment to delivering an internationally-recognised standard of business education that’s forward-looking and informed by the very best and brightest of academic and business minds. This, coupled with our Small Business Charter and all the opportunities that affords us, including Help to Grow Management, offers us a local-global interface that enables us to meaningfully contribute to regional economic growth and development.
I’m also a Professor of Applied Economics. My research focuses on productivity and skills. I seek to analyse how firms perform and how they can get better, whether it’s through (for example) having better technologies or processes or people. So, I’m keen to listen to the needs of local businesses.
Having had considerable previous experience with Business Schools, are you planning to make many changes at Brighton or introduce any new elements or courses?
Business Schools are very much about embracing change. Ensuring that our curriculum is up to date and relevant is a very important part of my job. But I am lucky enough to be surrounded by experts in their fields.
There will be new developments, like our new undergraduate programme on Business Analytics that’s scheduled to start next academic year. This initiative is joint with the School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering, and recognises the importance of Big Data and AI in business decision-making. It aims to equip our graduates with the technical skills the labour market will be looking for in this incredibly dynamic business space.
At the same time, the university aims to develop key graduate attributes that will continue to ensure Brighton students stand out – for their resilience, their commitment to equality and diversity and their solutions-focussed innovation.
We are also looking at other routes into education. We understand that learning takes place throughout our life, and Universities need to be open to provide these opportunities. Whether it’s through apprenticeships that fit alongside work, or short courses such as the Help to Grow Management programme that has enabled more than 200 small businesses in our region to come to us and reflect on their potential for, and routes to, sustainable growth.
Help To Grow Management, with a modest nudge from Platinum and Dynamic magazines, has been a success for both local businesses and the School
All universities are currently gripped in a funding crisis – do you feel this might affect the Business School in any way? Do you feel that higher fees or fewer courses is the answer?
absolutely delighted to have our overseas students join us this year. We value the cultural diversity and experience they bring to our communities.
How might you widen participation and inclusion within your business students to ensure that the next generation of business leaders reflect that?
Aside from new offers, we continue to ensure that we have the latest content in our courses, informed by research and best practice, delivering on Practical Wisdom.
How important is it that the Business School engage with local businesses?
It’s so important. Across the university, it matters, but it is essential for the School of Business & Law. There are so many ways in which you can interact with us and we are keen to foster even more opportunities.
For example, these might be live briefs with our students – come to us with a problem and working with one of our excellent colleagues, we aim to set it up as a classroom learning experience. Knowledge transfer partnerships are a great way to work practically with our academics. And I’ve mentioned Help to Grow already – a fantastic way for leaders of businesses to come and update themselves on the latest knowledge by taking a 360º look at business functions and how to grow their organisation.
The cost of higher education and the sustainability of the funding model across the UK has been the source of much discussion. This is a conundrum that’s not easily resolved. I think it may mean that some universities will offer fewer courses because some are no longer popular. To be more demand-led is not a bad thing per se but it’s a balance.
At the school level, we are working to increase the ways in which higher education can be delivered and want to ensure that the quality of education is the best it can be for different types of students. Decisions about fees are out of our hands, but we can try to be as nimble as possible.
As a sector, higher education has faced other challenges such as the increase in the cost of living. Locally, Brighton has found ways to help our students with initiatives such as the Brighton Boost, which offers help with accommodation costs – something we know helps in the first year of study. Business Schools are known for their global diversity and have also been affected by geopolitical changes that have hindered international travel so we are
Our School’s mission is to advance, support and shape responsible enterprise for a fairer society, preparing learners for practice and promoting inclusive practices that respect diversity. Thus, widening participation and increasing inclusion is at the very heart of what we do. It helps with us having a very diverse faculty – our academics come from more than 20 different countries. In addition, we try to ensure
❛❛ The cost of higher education and the sustainability of the funding model across the UK has been the source of much discussion ❜❜
❛❛ We aim to support our students in the transition into university and then out to the world of work – there’s always support available. ❜❜
that our assessments are authentic and represent problems from the real world – practical wisdom! And finally, we aim to support our students in the transition into university and then out to the world of work – there’s always support available.
One of our titles is Dynamic Magazine, the only UK magazine dedicated to women in business and we work hard to encourage female participation across all business sectors, but such participation starts at school, and then university. How can the business school ensure it has a 50/50 gender split across all courses?
We are lucky at the Business School in having a good gender balance and pride ourselves on our inclusivity. We can always do better. One of the accreditations we pride ourselves on is our Athena Swan Bronze award. It’s not
all about gender, of course, and intersectionality is something we are acutely aware of, but if we can make some headway in breaking down barriers in regard to gender, there may be some quick wins in other areas of underrepresented groups simply because we are more attuned.
At a recent Round Table event on the subject of Women in Tech, it became evident that there is huge male domination in the tech sector, with one of the reasons being a lack of female role models in education. Do you identify with that and how can we ensure more female role models in male dominated subjects?
It’s a big problem and one I’m familiar with in economics but one that we absolutely have to address. If you only have 50% of perspectives involved with any conversation, you will only come up with solutions that suit 50% of society.
The Help to Grow Management Programme has been a resounding success. There are still opportunities to get involved. Platinum Business Magazine has offered to fund a limited number of places, and Dynamic Magazine a limited number of places for women on the January cohort, so to get involved, get in touch now at helptogrow@brighton.ac.uk
www.brighton.ac.uk/helptogrow
There are incentives to enter STEM disciplines but we see less effort in the world of Business. We host a number of events to increase diversity – our Women in Business series of networking, talks and discussion this year is an example of this.
The University of Brighton's Moulsecoomb Campus has grown enormously in recent years, with the building housing the School of Business and Law right at the heart of it
INFLUENCERS FORUM THE
Welcome to this Influencers Forum on the subject of Business Start Ups
Launching a new business will often be one of the most important and scary things one might do, and many do this without the proper advice, without the correct knowledge and without the right people in place. Out of the 900,000 newly registered companies in 2023, 20% will fail in the first year, and 60% will go bust within three years. This is quite a shocking statistic when one considers the amount of hard work, heartache and cash that would have gone into the venture.
Here, we discuss the right way forward for a new company, what they should consider, what they need to know and advice on a variety of subjects that might just assist in bringing that fail rate rate down.
ANGELA MAGUIRE
Senior Lecturer/Help to Grow Programme Manager School of Business and Law University of Brighton
A highly experienced senior manager and lecturer in business and education, with a background in business and service sector industry, in assessing and developing skills. Executive level exposure to liaising and networking on national and regional agendas with a wide variety of stakeholders. Experience of European Partnership work and development of degree level apprenticeships across a variety of sectors. a.maguire2@brighton.ac.uk www.brighton.ac.uk
JAMES SHERRARD
Founder and Director, Humanitas Learning
James graduated from King’s College London with a first class master’s degree in philosophy and is currently applying for my PhD. Drawing on thousands of hours teaching experience, he offers elite tuition in the humanities and deliver lectures and seminars on a range of philosophical topics, including business ethics. www.humanitaslearning.co.uk jamessherrard@humanitaslearning.co.uk
TAYLOR
CEO & General Counsel, 360 Law Group
Robert is a Barrister who, since firm in 2014, has proved that state-of-the-art technology he costs for clients without compromising quality. Today, the firm has over 90+ countries, with an England regulated practice of 85 Solicitors legal areas except www.360lawgroup.co.uk r.taylor@360lawgroup.co.uk
ROBERT
INFLUENCERS
❛❛ Where traditional businesses will look for a gap, the new kid on the block will operate to a different, emerging business model ❜❜
Maarten Hoffmann: Any new business owner needs to consider whether there is a market. Where is my market? Do I know how to enter that field? And is there a gap? Would you agree with these first basic considerations?
Robert Taylor: Basically, yes. Many people have perceived that there's a market where there's not one, which is a dangerous thing to do. Or, they will go in, without sufficient capital and then lose out and waste their or other people's money.
Gregor Watt: One of the most dangerous things is somebody who's incredibly creative, who has a fantastic idea for a business concept, but absolutely no idea what to do with it. They then run gung-ho into setting up a business without everything else being in place.
MH: Angela, as someone who works with the Help to Grow programme at the University of Brighton, who are the people you’ve come across?
Angela Maguire: This is what I’d call the ‘ideas generation.’ I see many people come up with a great idea, and then convince themselves that, because they think it’s good and will work, everyone else will – without asking anybody first.
TAYLOR Counsel, Group since establishing the that by using secure, he can reduce legal compromising service over 500 lawyers in England & Wales SRASolicitors covering most except crime.
www.360lawgroup.co.uk r.taylor@360lawgroup.co.uk
GREGOR WATT
Managing Director and Chartered Financial Planner
HJP Chartered Financial Planners
As a fellow business owner, Greg knows how time-consuming and demanding running a business can be. With over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry, he joined HJP in 2005 and became managing director in March 2017. Greg lives in Caterham with his wife and three boys greg.hjpcfp@sjpp.co.uk www.hjpcfp.com
What needs to be done with a great idea is to engage, and involve as many stakeholders as possible; people who will not only agree with your idea but also seek to find any potential problems with it. ‘What’s bad about it?’ ‘What can go wrong?’
MH: James, not long ago, you opened your own business. What were your first considerations?
James Sherrard: My experience was one of transitioning from being a sole trader to setting up a limited company. I had some awareness of the market that I wanted to pitch to and knew what worked well. However, there are differences between operating as a sole trader and working as a limited company, and marketing something as a limited company is a different experience to selling your services individually.
MH: How did you identify that gap in the market?
JS: At the time, there was no established limited tutoring company that specialised in the Humanities covering the age range and education levels that we intended to offer. We found a huge demand for those subjects, and a couple of companies doing it, but with very little regulation. This allowed inappropriate people to work in the industry. What I wanted to do was establish a trustworthy and accredited tuition company.
MH: How do I, as a new business, see if there's a gap in the market for me?
AM: Often, people don’t know what they don't know. Some of the businesses we’ve come across are where they’ve come up with a bright idea in their bedroom, and from there, they develop that into a business.
One example I'm thinking of is someone who set up a business selling vintage trainers from his bedroom, but it was his Mum who was dealing with all the business matters for him. Now, his mum wants him to run the whole business. So she put him on our course to learn the business aspect.
In this instance, it’s about having a passion for it and knowing your market. His market was his peer group. From that, he’s used social media in a way that others previously hadn’t, and they were able to reach markets via new, maybe even unorthodox, methods.
We don't know what the next best idea is, so with the notion of the ‘ideas generation’, where traditional businesses will look for a gap, the new kid on the block will operate to a different, emerging business model.
MH: Do you witness this, Gregor, in terms of reaching out to your peer group and using social media to find that gap in the market? Or do you use other methods?
GW: We’re back to the original point; it’s about doing your research. There are plenty of people in my field who think they've carved out a niche, only to find that there are 65 other companies all operating in the same niche.
RT: My daughter sells a lot of stuff on Vinted. Sometimes she actually makes nearly as much money as it costs her to buy the item. However, she’s not using it as a business, but there’s nothing to say she couldn’t.
MH: After I’ve come up with a great idea where I realise there is a hole in the market, what’s the next thing I have to look at?
RT: Structure your business to ensure you've limited your risk; make sure you've got the best platform to trade from, not just for the ‘here and now’, but for looking towards the future. We’ve already had the example here, of starting as a sole trader and then morphing that into a limited company, looking for that natural progression…
JS: As the son of an employment lawyer, protecting against legal disaster, especially because I work with young people, some of whom have disabilities, or are below the age of 18; so, DBS checks for employees and safeguarding, and small business insurance.
GW: Can I just take a step back? Perhaps the next step is to think about, how are you going to deliver that product or service to your target market.
There are plenty of businesses that are massively successful, built on delivering an existing product, but in a different way. For example, Harry's Razors. They came up with a form of postal delivery, regular subscription, funky colour scheme, lovely branding – the works. And within a fairly short timespan, they sold out for a billion dollars to the owners of Wilkinson’s Sword, because they needed to close the gap in the market on Gillette, and they’d found the perfect vehicle.
And all they’d done was come up with a similar product that already existed and found a different way to deliver it to people.
RT: We've got a client that does exactly that with condoms. It just gets delivered to your door and it’s a good business model.
AM: Therein lies a generational shift. We go into a shop to buy stuff, whereas the younger generation don't tend to do that. It’s part of the thought process of goods coming to the youngsters, rather than the youngsters going and getting them.
GW: It’s a kind of lateral thinking. The direction of travel says people don't want to go to the supermarket. They want their stuff to be delivered, to which any entrepreneur would go ‘Why does it just have to be food from a supermarket?’ It can be my razors or my footwear.
RT: This is why Amazon and similar companies are so successful. It’s not Amazon's products; it’s all about the customer service experience of items being delivered at all because the younger generation doesn’t go shopping.
AM: This idea of a subscription service has grown postCOVID. It's all about keeping you, the customer by making you subscribe to something which you didn't even know you needed a subscription for, but find very useful.
GW: Netflix started as a DVD rental service. It was a subscription service. Their model was, ‘How many DVDs do you want, and how long do you want them before you send them back?’ Netflix adapted, and Blockbuster didn’t.
AM: One big reason why people started up businesses was as a result of COVID and the lockdowns. They started them because of their lifestyle change or because they were made redundant. If they've been made redundant, the risk element was reduced, because they have money, and they were of an age where they felt empowered to go and do it. Not all of them have worked out, but it threw a different dynamic into how and why you start a business.
Since COVID, there are now an awful lot of lifestyle businesses – mentoring and coaching – to the point there’s now a new term, ‘care washing,’ and it’s not far short of saturation point.
MH: As the fictitious owner of a fictitious business, and I’ve done my research and I am satisfied with my method of operation, how do I fund it?
GW: It costs a lot more than it did two or three years ago. You can go to Riverbank finance, or use crowdfunding services, which seems to be a far more popular route for raising money. Or you can go via family connections and friends.
❛❛ There are plenty of people in my field who think they've carved out a niche, only to find that there are 65 other companies all operating in the same niche ❜❜
❛❛ There are several ways in which a startup business can fail, and some of them are absolutely predictable and easily preventable ❜❜
MH: If we look at those options, banks are so risk-averse, that they want your soul as a guarantor. Crowdfunding could be an option, but surely having a friend ready to invest is a match made in heaven, is it not, Bob?
RT: No. Categorically not. Once you start a business, you need to seek professional advice, you need to have a shareholders agreement in place. The last thing you want to do is give the business away and start carving up the percentages that investors will demand from the company. I've seen many relationships go completely wrong as soon as that business is worth seven figures, and they’re at each other's throats, and it costs hundreds of thousands to settle those arguments.
MH: So what's my alternative for funding?
RT: The funding methods you’ve already mentioned are fine, provided you sort out – ahead of time – the structure, and whom and when you bring them into the ownership of the business.
GW: There isn’t a situation where a business angel comes in, lends you money, and there isn't a shedload of documents.
MH: So how do I structure it? James, how did you fund your business?
JS: My father gave me some for setting up the website, but much of it was transitioning from a sole trader into a limited company. I’d already had some funds together, just from operating as a sole trader, and I used that to transition. I’d saved for two years and put that capital in. And because it's an online business, my initial overheads were fairly low, so I was able to put some of the profits from Humanitas back into the business.
AM: There are also venture capital business angels who specialise in helping young people who haven’t got access to any family funds. I know Ben Francis at GymShark started that way.
RT: One issue I have is when you’re talking to private equity firms or business angels, you ideally need to talk to someone who’s been there before because these people are looking for blood. They’re not always playing from the top of the deck, and if they say they want, say, 40%, they’re looking to deceive you because, ultimately, they’ll stack the finance deal so that if the slightest thing goes wrong, they’ll take control of your business, and you’ll be a minority shareholder before you know it.
MH: If that’s the case, assuming you’ve also found a good lawyer, they wouldn’t let you sign that kind of arrangement?
RT: And not just a lawyer. Any decent accountant wouldn’t let you either. They’d insist you structure your company in a way that works best for you. But you’d need a good lawyer to deal with the private equity firm or the business angel because they know what they’re doing.
GW: There are several ways in which a startup business can fail, and some of them are absolutely predictable and easily preventable, but only if you seek advice from people who've seen it before and know what to warn you about.
RT: It’s when you’re looking to attract investors that you need the benefit of someone’s professional expertise to help you.
GW: There is a variety of sources that we can link anyone up with, from private individuals and personal contacts to people whose entire business is funding startup companies. And if we know you well enough, we'll probably be able to steer you towards the ones that are most suited to you.
MH: And that personal recommendation puts more trust in that professional?
GW: If an accountant or a solicitor recommends one of their clients to me, I normally suggest they're in the room too, because that individual doesn't know me; they know their accountant or solicitor who referred them. I think it makes perfect sense to try and put people as much at ease as possible.
MH: In meeting people through Help to Grow, does funding come up often?
AM: When that subject comes up, we tell them about a company called Let's Do Business. They put them in touch with business grants and loans that are available – and there are quite a lot available out there.
The government offers these financial packages as they see it as being to the UK economy’s benefit as a whole that SMEs grow – even if just a little bit. The main problem is that so many people don’t know about the whole range of grants and loans available to them, including funding to acquire professional help as you start up. And this includes the government’s own British Business Bank. People have heard of Lloyd’s and Barclays, but not of the British Business Bank.
MH: Has the growth of your business – even though it’s not a cash-hungry company – meant you’ve needed help along the way?
JS: Designing the website and branding were a cost., so I needed investment for that. What was difficult in the early days was that when I transitioned to a limited company, my overheads tripled, but I wasn't yet bringing in many clients through the business. Until that righted itself, I felt I needed a little help.
MH: So I've got my great idea. I found myself a great accountant, a great financial planner, and a lawyer. This takes me on to marketing – that's a minefield. How do I find a marketer?
AM: Before you do that, you need to ask yourself, what is your vision? What are your objectives? And who are you selling to? Many people can't answer those questions. Or, worse, they thought they knew, and they didn't ask other people. It's amazing how many businesses have been around for a long time and they don't know what their vision is, and this isn’t just one generation. I’ve known businesses where more than one generation just plods along – they just exist – once the sons and daughters have taken over, and they too don’t know their mission.
GW: These questions are the first that a decent marketer would ask a business owner. ‘So you’re trying to offer me a job to do the marketing for your business – what's your mission? Who’s your target?’ And if the right answers don’t come back, any decent marketer will quickly get out. A marketer can't solve your issues about why you started the business.
AM: If you can answer those questions, then the marketer can help you prepare a marketing strategy. And then you've got an actual document, which will form part of the toolbox that you can then take to a financier to help you with your business.
GW: A marketer will deliver a strategy to get you to where you want to go, but you’ve got to know where that is first.
MH: How did you market your business, James?
JS: We use various platforms on social media, from Instagram to TikTok to Facebook. We find that parents are more accessible on Facebook, while lots of university students are more often on Instagram and TikTok.
We produce snappy content which is digestible on TikTok and Instagram. So if there's a particular exam question which students struggle with, we'll do a two-minute video on it. We have found it's been very successful.
Another thing we did was a flyer campaign. A company analysed some demographics in London for us, and we then sent the flyers to the appropriate houses. We have gone to some trade fairs and advertised our services there. We also went to Freshers Fair and stood outside the university giving out flyers and info, which was good. We've got four new clients just this week through that.
In the midst of all that, our marketing costs are pretty low. The flyer campaign cost me about £200. Social media is basically free, aside from the running costs of my staff producing the content. From there, we can work out which methods and platforms are most successful.
MH: Are there other costs involved with social media sites?
JS: We have done some sponsored content on Instagram, which worked quite well and the returns were good. Overall, it’s about getting the brand out there.
MH: Is your client the parent or the student?
JS: It varies. For university students who are looking for assistance, we deal directly with them, but when it's the younger students – GCSE and A-Level – it’s very much the parents that we're targeting, and that tends to be through Facebook.
MH: Is AI playing into your field, especially regarding plagiarism?
JS: There are illegitimate companies who are offering that sort of assistance. But I think university professors are quite good at noticing that, and they can tell when an essay is being created through AI. However, some competitors are using AI in a far more legitimate way. For example, one company which used to offer one-to-one traditional tuition has now moved into an AI platform created by multiple experts. One of the things we emphasise is that we don't provide an automated system. We construct personalised learning plans tailored around the individual, and our experts will derive that from an initial consultation.
MH: So now everything is falling into place after my initial ‘Big Idea’. Next in my plan is mentors. Are they worth it?
GW: They can be. The challenge for people of my age is that the traditional business model is evolving rapidly – towards people being able to run a successful business out of a back bedroom selling stuff I wouldn't buy.
TikTok is full of people who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So when choosing a mentor, it has to be the right one. There is very little point in a 20-year-old having a 60-year-old mentor, whose relative business methodologies are at odds with each other. But if you can find the right mentor then, absolutely – they’re worth it.
❛❛ You need to ask yourself, what is your vision?
What are your objectives? And who are you selling to? Many people can't answer those questions ❜❜
❛❛ There’s no substitute for good experience, but I think a lot of the best experience is learned by people who listen ❜❜
MH: Surely finding a mentor who only understands a new way of working is only ever going to be through someone who hasn't got a lot of experience?
GW: Experience is not a be-all. You have to have had the right experience.
RT: It’s also not about mentoring in one area. The quickest way to get me to reject anybody's email or LinkedIn post is to say you're a business coach. But you can have mentors in different areas of business. It doesn't have to be in the overall strategy of what you're selling. You can have a mentor who's teaching a bit about finance, a bit about marketing; I think those types of people are more useful.
JS: How does one know that, as a young person setting up a business, whether a mentor is worth it? There’s so much corporate speak. And there are so many charlatans out there, and it would be very easy to string somebody along and make them think that what you're saying is essential.
GW: If a mentor came to a young person and said, ‘I can help you grow your business, and it's £1,000 to sit down for an initial chat’, I'd be pretty peeved.
We’ve got to know what that person or service is like. We never charge a new client for a first meeting, because I can't think of anything that would annoy me more than to sit down and spend an hour of my life with somebody I then decide I don't like, and then be sent a bill for it.
MH: This loops back to getting the right advice. So if you find a genuine business mentor, you're talking to one of your advisors and saying, What do you think about this deal?
GW: If you chat to some of your peers and say, I'm looking for a bit of help in this area, and somebody you know and trust says, ‘I know this person, and they're brilliant, and they'll give you an hour or two of their time. I'd recommend them. That's a pretty good starting point.
AM: On the Help to Grow programme, the candidates were entitled to ten hours of free business mentoring coaching. The government chose to use the company, Enterprise Nation, and they trained all the mentors and coaches, so they were all effectively government-approved.
Interestingly, of the people who have taken our courses, I'd say 70% found their mentors helpful, while the other 30% thought them a waste of time. A lot of it was the personal relationship, someone they felt they could get on with.
Some of them then decided that it wasn't the business skills tutoring they wanted; they wanted to know about leadership skills, empowerment skills, business skills and team building.
MH: Can you train a mentor? Or can mentorship only come through years of experience?
RT: Experience. I wouldn’t trust someone who is claiming to be a mentor without having worked in that field.
GW: I'm conflicted on that one. There’s no substitute for good experience, but I think a lot of the best experience is learned by people who listen.
Some of the best advice I've ever had was about things like understanding the concept of echo chambers and cognitive disciplines. I now embrace people who don't think like me because they might have ideas that I would never have.
I might disagree with those ideas, but I'd never have thought and considered them if I hadn't heard them.
RT: And it’s about listening differently to everyone around you. That means to your market, to your suppliers, to your clients, the way your whole market operates – everything.
GW: I'd be quite interested in a mentor with experience, but not in the industry I'm operating in. Someone who can bring me business knowledge, listening skills, market understanding, tactics and strategies for developing a business, but not in my field. Bring me something new.
The next step after that is you have to mitigate risk. I would raise one simple question – what is the biggest asset that every business owner has? To me, it’s their future earnings. If you've borrowed money, you are at risk. If you have a period of sickness or injury and you cannot work for a while, you are at risk.
Many risks need to be mitigated, so if you're 40, and intend to work until you’re 65, your future earnings are the biggest asset you've got, and you need to protect them.
MH: So presuming I’ve taken on board all the appropriate professional advice, including what you’ve just mentioned, how do I scale my business from there?
GW: It depends on your funding arrangements and whether you can work out how to expand your proposition because there is a limit to just selling more of one thing. You're going to need to branch out and sell other things as well. Every business will hit a plateau at some point. The question then is, ’ What happens when you hit that plateau?’ Do you stay there? Do you take off?
RT: You'll always have to take off. If you don’t continue to grow to some degree, the next step will be that the market will take you down.
AM: The traditional product life cycle has always been a curve. But it doesn't happen like that. It is more of a series of step changes. When you employ up to ten people, your costs are in one place. But if you go from ten to 50 people, everything else becomes more complicated.
Likewise, there is the next step from 50 to 249 – the government's ceiling for what an SME is. If you want to go above that, then there is a whole range of other issues. Many entrepreneurs or SME business people actively choose not to do that.
There is a statistic about women, who won't take their business above a certain size. It may be because of lifestyle or lack of confidence, but there are key stepping-off points to do with scaling a business.
GW: To get beyond a certain point, unless you come up with something different, you need that catalyst to move forward. This plateau that every business hits, you need something to take you on to the next phase of growth.
RT: You also need the staff to generate those ideas or the skill sets internally, where maybe you're paying externally. Many people bring in legal resources at some point to cut down on the amount of money they spend with external businesses. People will bring in a CFO, and they can spend dedicated amounts of time on the business, as opposed to just coming in, helping the business and immediately exiting. That's the time that maturity or growth happens in a business.
MH: Once you get the bit between your teeth with your business, and it's going well and you're having success, isn’t it the case that it's almost impossible not to scale?
GW: It can be dangerous. There’s someone I know who started as a financial advisor. This person was very successful and reached a stage where they had too many clients to deal with, so they took on staff, and they took on other advisors.
Within three years, this person is running a business, which was outside of their skill set. They started as a financial advisor, and now they’re having to be a businessperson, managing people and all other things associated with running a business.
MH: On the subject of getting professional business help, there’s great growth in fractional help. Hiring these people can be expensive, but doing so by the hour seems like big business at the moment.
RT: It's huge, and it's great for some businesses. We have used a CFO for the past five years. He comes in on a bi-monthly basis and does the management accounts. We buy that service in, as we don’t need to carry that cost all year round.
MH: In terms of the scaling of your business, was it purely the change in the regulation rules for law firms that allowed you to deal with freelance lawyers?
RT: That was the catalyst. Covid accelerated it. That was the start of the business. We were able to scale by the market driving us. The conditions were there, and we’re now in 90 countries, and 34 US states.
MH: But when it comes to mentoring or helping out, we’ve come across some who weren’t successful in their field, and still ended up coaching or mentoring. So where does their wisdom come from? Do you look for a mentor that's not in your sector, just because you’ll hear something you already know?
RT: If you want an accountant or a CFO to come in, its vital to get someone with the right experience. It’s the same with marketing. We use suppliers in many areas throughout our company. All of our designers are in America and we wouldn't do anything without them. They do the design work, and they also provide us with ideas of what to do. And I do consider that a form of mentoring.
MH: James, can you ever imagine scaling your business suddenly? Or would you let that happen organically?
JS: The growth has been largely organic, as has the company transition. My scenario was like you were describing earlier, I simply had too many clients to attend to myself, so I started taking on people. We are starting to prepare for growth. But we’re concentrating at present on growing our client base through marketing. We’ve grown to a certain point, and we’re now looking to speed that process up.
MH: Do you think you will get to the point where you start employing – as opposed to using self-employed people?
❛❛ To get beyond a certain point, unless you come up with something different, you need that catalyst to move forward. ❜❜
JS: I intend to continue to use independent contractors for a lot of the tutors, but some of my staff members now help with running the website, they help with managing the business, and a bit with producing revision guides and so on, I’d consider taking them on as permanent staff. But other obligations come with that. Legally speaking, I'd have to do that strategically, and at the right time.
❛❛ There are people out there who want to just do 20 hours a week. And if that’s enough for them, they don't want to be doing 40-50 hours a week ❜❜
MH: What do you think is the benefit of having someone on the payroll doing the same job that someone who's not on the payroll is doing? Where's your benefit?
JS: The first benefit is that it may well increase loyalty. At present, the tutoring market is pretty crowded. Those who work for me now could advertise those same services on other, larger platforms. I've got some top-level staff; PhD students, and people with first-class degrees, and I need to incentivise them to keep them with Humanitas, as I’d like to be able to keep them on an exclusive basis.
It’s down to me to make them want to stay. I'm doing that through not only providing tutoring work but other work opportunities as well, like producing revision videos, attending trade fairs, help with working on the marketing side of things – a variety of tasks to alleviate the mundane. At the moment, I'd only be confident enough to take them on as a full-term employee once I've managed to upscale the business.
RT: Would you be paying them less if you took them on as employed, rather than having them continue as consultants? I know they’d have job security, but they’d also have not as much coming in. It’s a bit of a balancing act, isn’t it?
JS: They’d indeed be on less-per-hour, but they’d then be working on a full-time basis, so hence more hours. At present, I don't need to guarantee them a set number of hours per week; it's very flexible. Also, if there's a slight downturn, I can take on the lessons on their behalf. The balancing act is theirs as well as mine.
MH: Is that a de-motivator for James’ staff to want to come onboard; they're going to be paid effectively, less, maybe per hour per se, but there's security. But is that a de-motivator?
GW: It depends on the circumstances of the individual members of staff. We've spoken a lot about work-life balance. There are people out there who want to just do 20 hours a week. And if that’s enough for them, they don't want to be doing 40-50 hours a week.
JS: I’ve spoken to Ben, who has been with me from the start. He’s of the same understanding that we'd have to upscale until I could guarantee those hours. The advantage is that all of my staff are all PhD students who are very passionate about academia and education. Most of them are looking for part-time work – but ongoing, secure part-time work.
MH: We've all seen people go into a business which they thought was a great idea. They probably consist of the 60% of people who are going to fail.
GW: That contains an awful lot of restaurant owners. ‘I like food, let’s open a restaurant…’ I had to have that conversation with my brother. We were on holiday in France, and he found a ‘For Sale’ sign outside a restaurant. ‘We should do that. I'll run the kitchen. You run the front of house with the wine buying.’ Er… NO!
MH: It brings us, full circle, back round to the fact that to avoid that, get the right advice. Good advice speaks the truth. We've come to the end, so if I can go around the table, and ask, what's your best advice to our readers who are looking to start a business?
RT: Talk to the experts after you've got your business plan together.
MH: And a business plan is still a relevant thing these days?
RT: It is. You should look at how good your idea of a business is in black and white. You should produce a marketing plan to find out what your market is, how good that market is and what your competition is in that market.
GW: Make sure you don't forget about the simple risks that can drive your business under through no fault of your own.
MH: What’s your advice, James, as a young business person?
JS: Be clear about your product, and whom you’re marketing it to. Is there a gap in the market, and if so, make sure your marketing properly targets that demographic.
AM: If I were to make a list, I’d say there is the importance of generating and testing ideas; the value of obtaining professional help and support; networking with a wide range of people; communicating with your future stakeholders; write a clear vision, mission and values statement; have a working strategy that you share with your colleagues, and don’t be afraid to say No!
MH: Thank you all for your time and expertise.
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Creative Pod and the RSPCA
The Big Animal Lottery and Summer Cruelty Campaigns
As part of Creative Pod’s 2024 strategy, and in light of its 18th birthday, it wanted to expand its client base beyond Sussex and the South East to work on larger projects in London. Over the summer, the company started working with the RSPCA, the UK’s leading animal welfare charity, dedicated to preventing cruelty, promoting kindness, and rescuing animals in need.
The RSPCA reached out to Creative Pod for design support to help with two campaigns:
structured to guide the viewer’s attention from the headline down to the story and call-to-action.
Gordon Hazelwood, Head of Creative, says, “My team have loved working with the RSPCA and I’m proud of the campaign work we’ve produced. My designers have provided exceptional service with accurate, quick work and great attention to detail. We all collectively love working with a charity that does so much good too.”
❛❛ Working with the RSPCA and helping them with two of their largest campaigns has been a privilege ❜❜
• The Big Animal Lottery - allowing supporters to win cash prizes while contributing to the charity's efforts.
• The Summer Cruelty Appeal - raises awareness about the spike in animal cruelty cases during the summer months.
Creative Pod’s digital designers were tasked to create graphics and animations to support and spread awareness across its website and social media channels. These designs involved 3D icons, dynamic motion, and enticing animations. The company introduced colour schemes, typography, and imagery whilst ensuring the design was
Matt Turner, CEO, adds, “Working with the RSPCA and helping them with two of their largest campaigns has been a privilege. It’s given us an opportunity to showcase our Michelin-star service with quality work, delivered on time and on budget. It’s incredible to see how far we have grown as an agency over 18 years - working with a national charity like this is a major milestone for us!.”
If you want to elevate your brand through exceptional design, get in touch – www.creativepod.uk.com/ contact
FREE TO ENTER
2025 CATEGORIES
Large Business of the Year
SME Business of the Year
Future Talent of the Year
Best Customer Service Award
Best New Business Award
Retailer of the Year
Businessperson of the Year
Community Hero Award
Company of the Year
Employer of the Year
Best Restaurant Award
Outstanding Brightonian
Professional Services Award
Diversity & Inclusion Award
Green Business of the Year
International Business of the Year
Property Business of the Year
Leisure and Tourism Excellence Award
Tech Excellence Award
Established in 2004, the Brighton & Hove Business Awards (BAHBAs) are the most sought-after accolade by organisations from every sector in the city.
Previous winners of these awards include some of the city’s biggest and best loved names including Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, RocketMill, Norman Cook, Gresham Blake, BrightonandHoveJobs.com, SpaBreaks, Rockwater, Bird & Blend Tea Co, Infinity Foods, Duke of York’s Picture House, Brighton Festival, Dockerills and University of Sussex.
Businesses can submit into a maximum of three categories and it’s free to enter. Deadline January 8th 2025
Norman Cook – Outstanding Brightonian 2018
❛❛ That was the most professional show we have ever attended ❜❜ HEATHROW
The WORLD’S HIGHEST 2024
WORLD’S HIGHEST BIKE RIDE
Our very own ‘mad’ global adventurer, Neil Laughton, decided to risk his life and go for yet another Guinness Book of Records entry; this time with the World’s Highest Bike Ride.
Having decided on the Putha Hiunchuli peak in Nepal, topping out at 7,246m (23,773ft), it was one of Neil’s toughest
challenges to date and, as he decided to do it with a chest infection and following recent cancer surgery, this will come as a surprise to absolutely no-one.
After the successful attempt, there was an emotional team reunion at Base Camp the next day followed by celebrations in the evening with cake, cigars
and whisky. His colleagues described him as a ‘zombie’ during the four-day hike off the mountain, and it would take ten days before he started to feel a little better.
This challenge had turned out to be one of the toughest tests of his life – and that is saying something.
By Paul Bates, MD, Cleankill Pest Control
Cleankill named as Investors in People finalist
Cleankill Pest Control has been named as a finalist in the prestigious Investors in People Awards for the first time. The company is among the elite group of companies shortlisted for The Award for UK Employer of the Year in The Investors in People Awards 2024.
Cleankill Managing Director Paul Bates comments: “We are all absolutely thrilled to be shortlisted in these awards. The recognition of our hard work and the commitment of every single member of staff to Investors in People is really important and appreciated.”
The Investors in People judges adds: “On behalf of everyone at Investors in People, we would like to extend our congratulations to you and the team for your fantastic work.
Investors in People has been vital to Cleankill’s journey from a team of two working from a bedroom to 49 employees and growing. It has given the team of directors focus on how to be the best employer possible and the motivation to develop what is called ‘The Cleankill Way’.
Paul Bates continues: We couldn’t have succeeded in the way we have without
Cleankill Pest Control offers eradication and preventative services for all public health pests, including: rats; mice; wasps; cockroaches; squirrels; fleas; bed bugs and pest birds. As a registered waste carrier, Cleankill also removes pigeon debris and other waste.
It has offices in Surrey, East Sussex, Bristol and Buckinghamshire, and has many customers throughout London, Surrey, Sussex, the Home Counties, Bristol, Gloucestershire and Somerset.
“Cleankill’s commitment to growth, ethical practices, and staff development demonstrate a forward-thinking approach that ensures sustainability, leadership continuity and a positive work environment. Your focus on becoming greener and achieving certifications like B-Corp or Planet Mark highlights a dedication to environmental responsibility, setting you apart as a leader in the industry.”
From the start, the Cleankill directors wanted to build a company that they themselves would want to work for. There was no blueprint at that time, just experience of how they had each been treated by their employers – what was good and what was bad.
the external validation and support that our Investors in People assessors have given us while pursuing IIP accreditation. We also knew that becoming the best employer we could be and gaining accreditation would have huge commercial benefits.
"Surprisingly, other pest control companies - even the household name companies - have not taken the same route as us and we remain the only pest control business in England to have achieved Gold accreditation.”
Award-winning Cleankill Pest Control was founded on the desire to create an operation that places professionalism, customer service, respect for the environment, care for the community and staff development on an equal footing with profitability.
Cleankill was the first pest control company in England to attain the Gold Investors in People standard and was named ‘Company of the Year‘ in the British Pest Control Association Awards.
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Innsbruck
AUSTRIA’S PICTURE-PERFECT LANDSCAPE
LANDSCAPE Innsbruck
If you’re dreaming of a perfect winter escape — where mountains rise dramatically from the city’s doorstep, where every turn reveals centuries-old architecture bathed in soft, wintry light, and where the slopes are just as inviting after dark as they are by day — then Innsbruck is your place.
By Tess de Klerk
Visiting this small alpine city feels like stepping in to a postcard; one in which you can sip mulled wine in a medieval square one moment, and be on the ski slopes the next. Its small size makes it easy to get around but I would recommend staying in the Old Town with
plenty of restaurants around. There’s a variety of accommodation across the area, from basic hostels to luxury suites, something for all tastes and budgets. There is plenty to do in these magical mountains. Here are my top recommendations.
SKIING UNDER THE STARS
For most, skiing means daytime thrills: clear blue skies, crisp snow, and sundrenched peaks. But in Innsbruck, the fun doesn’t end when the sun sets. Some resorts offer night skiing, turning the mountains into a moonlit playground.
One of my favourites is Patscherkofel, where you can ski under floodlights on the Heiligwasserwiese until 6:30 pm.
Gliding down the slopes with the city lights below and stars above is surreal. Night skiing here is quieter, almost
meditative. For a true ski-in, ski-out experience, Kühtai is perfect. As Austria’s highest resort, it offers direct access to the slopes day or night. There’s nothing quite like stepping out of your hotel and onto the piste—pure alpine bliss.
❛❛ Cosy huts like the Rosskogel hut offer hearty Tyrolean fare — think steaming goulash and cheese dumplings ❜❜
Innsbruck Old Town
Night skiing
Schloß Ambras or Ambras Castle
❛❛ For a touch of Innsbruck history, Ambras Castle is a must ❜❜
TOBOGGANING – FUN FOR ALL AGES
Not everything in Innsbruck revolves around skiing. For a more relaxed winter thrill, head to Rangger Köpfl, home to one of the longest toboggan (sledding) runs in the region. The eight-kilometre descent is pure joy.
First, there’s a slow climb through snow-covered forest; then, after a warming cup of mulled wine, you hop on your toboggan and let gravity take over.
The best part? The giddy, carefree fun of it all. You race down the mountainside, wind biting at your face as the path twists unexpectedly. It’s an adventure that brings out the child in everyone, no matter how seasoned a traveller you are.
If you need a breather, cosy huts like the Rosskogel hut offer hearty Tyrolean fare — think steaming goulash and cheese dumplings. For something quieter, nearby Simmeringalm is ideal for snowshoeing through pristine landscapes, offering stunning views over the Mieming Plateau.
THE TELFS CARNIVAL
Winter in Innsbruck isn’t all about skiing and markets. Every five years, the town of Telfs hosts the Telfer Schleicherlaufen, a carnival dating back to 1890. The next one is in February 2025, and it’s worth planning for. Picture colourful costumes, towering hats, and a town buzzing with music and dance. This cherished tradition has even earned a place on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
AMBRAS CASTLE - A WINTER WONDERLAND
For a touch of Innsbruck’s history, Ambras Castle is a must. This Renaissance castle, perched above the city, transforms into a fairytale scene in winter. Snow blankets the grounds, creating a peaceful white wonderland, perfect for a romantic stroll.
If you’re lucky, you might spot the resident peacocks, their vibrant colours standing out against the snow. From here, the views over Innsbruck, framed by mountains, are breathtaking.
After visiting the castle, hop on the Nordkette cable car, which takes you from the city to Seegrube at 2,000 metres. The lively Cloud9 sun terrace at the top is perfect for a drink with an unbeatable panorama of Innsbruck and its surrounding peaks.
FESTIVE MAGIC AT THE CHRISTMAS MARKETS
Innsbruck’s charm peaks in the run-up to Christmas, when the city turns into a winter wonderland of lights, festive music, and the smell of cinnamon and spiced punch. The Christmas markets scattered across the city are a highlight, with the Old Town market, nestled beneath the Golden Roof, being a
favourite. It feels like stepping back in time, with medieval houses lit up and stalls selling handmade ornaments and roasted chestnuts.
For a unique twist, the nearby town of Telfs hosts a Victorian-style Christmas market, complete with a performance of Scrooge that brings Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to life.
Whether you’re drawn to the slopes, the festive magic, or the rich culture, Innsbruck offers a lovely winter escape.
GOOD TO KNOW
For getting around town stress free, pick up a Welcome Card. Not only does it give you free access to the region’s public transport (including the charming ‘forest tram’ that takes you to Igls via Ambras Castle), but it also offers discounts on a range of activities. It’s the easiest way to explore the city and its surroundings, all while keeping your holiday eco-friendly.
Getting there: Reach Innsbruck with a direct 2h flight from Gatwick with easyJet. Trains into town depart every 20 minutes.
Stuck for
Maybe you’re Maarten special one
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS...
for what to buy your loved ones at Christmas? you’re feeling panicked into a last-minute rush? Hoffmann has a few stocking-filler ideas for the one in your life...
The Bombardier Global 5500
A pure light pink, 12 carat diamond
The Augusta Westland helicopter
The 106-metre Black Pearl Yacht
A single bottle of 1945 Romanee Conti
The Pagani Roadster
The five-acre Oasis Island in the Abacos Islands, Bahamas
Villa Leopolda in the South of France
The Rolls Royce Boat Tail
The Baglietto 47.6-metre Super Yacht
The Ferrari F80 £3.1m £24.5m
The Hublot Meca-10 King
The Drone Light Show
Experience Charles Dickens’ beloved Christmas story, performed by hundreds of animated drones and narrated by Matt Lucas.
45-minute animated drone light show
Festive food village
Music and fun pre-show entertainment
Sat 14 Dec 2024 | The 1st Central County Ground, Brighton yuup.co/a-christmas-carol
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To
Swiftnomics
Wherever she and her entourage pitches up, Taylor Swift brings a boost to the local economy like no other individual in the world
6 Upfront: The top international news stories involving women in business
14 In the Right Direction: Good news stories from around the world
6 Kreston Reeves: The value of understanding your team
16 Community is the new influencer
Pippa Moyle of the City Girl Network on how people are finding better appreciation nearer to home
18 Are you aiming high enough?
There is an ambition cap holding female founders back. Emma Gage suggests ways on how to step it up
Proportion of companies in South West England with a female director (the highest ranking region in the UK) 44%
If the world were ruled by women then there would be no war. Just a couple of nations not talking with each other.
28 My business isn’t unique ‘So how do I stand out from the crowd?’, asks Niki Hutchinson
23 Honor Barratt
Honor is the Chief Executive Officer at Birchgrove, a developer of laterlife homes
24 Catrina Baker-Bassett
Catrina is Managing Director at digital products experts, Dabapps
30 Move Up or Move On: 10 Secrets to Develop Your Career by Angela
Health & Wellbeing
20 Mind the trap You don’t have to strive for perfection, suggests Laura Tristram
Lane and Sergey Gorbatov. Art Scene
32 Kellie Miller discusses the works of Kate Richardson
34 Hotel Indigo, Stratford-uponAvon
Dining
36 Mowgli Brighton: A journey through Indian street food
What’s On
38 A brief snapshot of art and culture cross Sussex and Surrey
EDITOR’S NOTE
A warm welcome to another issue of Dynamic, jam-packed for your reading pleasure.
On top of our Taylor Swift Big Story this month, we bring you the second City Girl column in which Pippa discusses the power and influence of community, something that should not be ignored by any business.
Our features include Emma Gage from The Wild Ones asking the question ‘Are you aiming high enough?’ While Niki Hutchinson advises on how to make your business stand out from the crowd. Alison Jones from Kreston Reeves suggests that businesses know their teams – and shares their recent in-depth team exploration.
In Spotlight this month, Catrina Baker-Bassett tells us about her journey to becoming Managing Director of Dabapps - with, initially, very little understanding of software and tech. Honor Barratt shares how she had moved from clueless runner in television to Chief Executive Officer at property developer, Birchgrove.
HEAD OF DESIGN / SUB EDITOR: Alan Wares alan@platinummediagroup.co.uk
‘WORK-LIFE
BALANCE
IS A LIE’
Women should stop striving for work-life balance to avoid living in a constant state of guilt, the ITV presenter Charlene White (above) has said.
“A lot of parents, especially women, are told that we need to think about work-life balance when actually, if we focus too much on that, we consistently live in a state of guilt,” said the Loose Women presenter. “I just do the best I can, every day.”
Her comments came after Thasunda Brown Duckett, the President and Chief Executive of the Fortune 500 financial services company TIAA, said, “work-life balance is a lie” and that she gives her children 30% of her time.
The sentiment was further backed up by Kate Grussing, the Founder and Managing Director of the recruitment firm Sapphire Partners. “Feeding younger women the lie that they can have it all is dangerous.”
NEW APPOINTMENT AT BREWIN DOLPHIN
Charlotte Knowles, head of client relationships at Nybble, has been appointed to Brewin Dolphin’s Female Founders Board.Brewin Dolphin is one of the UK’s largest wealth management firms.
Its Female Founders Club is a platform designed to support and empower female entrepreneurs, bringing together a diverse group of individuals with invaluable experience and expertise in various aspects of entrepreneurship and business. The Board includes CEOs, seasoned professionals, successful founders, corporate advisers and angel investors.
Charlotte said: “I am thrilled and honoured to be asked to join the board and contribute to the support and empowerment of female entrepreneurs. Nybble are strong advocates for women in business, and this role further strengthens Nybble’s commitment to supporting and advancing opportunities for women.”
UPFRONT
THE LATEST BULLETINS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
CITY BANKS SNUB
‘INVEST IN WOMEN’ TASKFORCE
To love what you do and feel like it matters – how could anything be more fun?
Katherine Graham, former publisher, New York Times
The £250m Invest in Women fund, set up by the previous UK government and backed by current Chancellor Rachel Reeves, has been snubbed by several City institutions. The Taskforce is co-chaired by Barclays’ Head of Business Banking Hannah Bernard and Brit entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow.
Only Barclays, asset manager M&G, bank Morgan Stanley, Visa and the British Business Bank have so far pledged support. Among those to say ‘No’ so far to the Invest in Women Taskforce are NatWest, HSBC, Bank of
America and Legal and General. Aviva, which is headed by Amanda Blanc, is yet to commit, it is believed.
It follows research showing female founders attract under 2% of venture capital funding which is often key to get firms growing.
INDY TRACK MARKETS TO SWIFTIES
In a further example of Swiftnomics (see ‘Big Story’ this month), Taylor Swift’s appearance in Indianapolis in early November allowed the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS – and home of the testosterone-themed Indy 500) to market and educate the singer’s fans of about women in racing.
The track is working with racing equipment manufacturer Bell Helmets
❛
and the Women in Motorsports North America (WIMNA) group to create eleven specially designed helmets that correspond to the 11 eras of Swift’s career.
IMS also got the Swift Alert app, which describes itself as “the ultimate app for Swifties,” in on the activation, as it has embedded a graphic showing where the helmets are this weekend.
If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
HSBC ANNOUNCES ITS FIRST CFO
Pam Kaur, formerly HSBC’s chief risk and compliance officer, has been named as the company’s first Chief Financial Officer.
HSBC has undergone a major overhaul by merging some operations and splitting its geographic footprint into East and West under new CEO Georges Elhedery.
Under the revamp, HSBC will combine some of its commercial and investment banking businesses. It also installed a new leadership structure, which would “unleash our full potential and drive success into the future,” Elhedery said in a memo to staff. The group is carving up its operations into four business lines – UK, Hong Kong, corporate and institutional banking, and wealth banking.
NEW WOMEN’S DATA COLLABORATION FOR AXA
AXA UK has announced a new collaboration with Women in Data, a group dedicated to empowering women in data and technology careers, marking a significant move by the insurer to improve diversity within data-focussed roles in insurance and to address the gender gap that persists.
Through the partnership, AXA UK staff will have access to a variety of professional development activities led by Women in Data, such as ‘lunch & learn’ sessions and networking events with members from other partner companies.
AXA UK will also be able to post job openings on the Women in Data job board, helping the company reach a broader, more diverse talent pool.
NUMBER OF TOP UK FEMALE LEADERS SHRINKS
The number of women who hold executive reins in corporate Britain has fallen for the first time in eight years in an “unacceptable” reversal that could delay gender parity for another five generations.
The Pipeline, which analyses gender diversity at senior corporate levels, said the average proportion of women on executive committees at Britain’s 350 biggest, listed companies slipped to 32% in 2024 from a revised 33% last year.
The drop appears small, but Geeta Nargund, the chair of Pipeline, told Reuters it reflected a sharp disconnect with male numbers and urged business leaders and headhunters to use the vast pool of female talent to fill decision-making roles, fix cultures and ensure women can thrive in the workplace. “It is unacceptable that gender representation in business leadership is moving backwards in 2024.” she said.
THE FASTEST GROWING UK BUSINESS LED BY WOMEN
Starling Bank and Beauty Pie have topped a list of the fastestgrowing UK businesses led by women, JP Morgan Private Bank announced in its annual report. It also state that investment in ‘women-powered’ businesses has tripled over the past decade.
Digital bank Starling, which was founded by entrepreneur Anne Boden (right), took the number one spot in this year’s list of 200 firms after doubling sales in 2023 and rapidly expanding staff across the UK. Ms Boden stepped down as chief executive of the bank earlier this year, to allow her to focus on being a large shareholder.
Skincare and beauty retailer Beauty Pie came in at number two, having been launched in 2015 by Soap & Glory founder Marcia Kilgore and securing £126 million in equity investment since, the analysis showed.
By ALISON JONES, Partner at Kreston Reeves
THE VALUE OF UNDERSTANDING YOUR TEAM
There is a lot of uncertainty for businesses at the moment as we await the outcome and digest the implications of both the UK Budget and events that impact globally such as the US election.
It’s a good time for business leaders to stand back and look in depth at their teams
It’s a good time for business leaders to stand back and look in depth at their teams to ensure that they are the right team in the right place, and that they are all working effectively together. Collectively, you need to be ready to react to change.
We recently looked at the different personalities within our team and how best to work and communicate with each other. We used a management training tool which categorised personality traits into four different types –Driver, Expressive, Amiable and Analytical.
This tool used a simple questionnaire to help identify where you sit in terms of these traits. These are also often identified by colours, with Driver being red, Expressive being yellow, Amiable being green and Analytical being blue.
If you were to think of this in terms of animals think of a red bear, an expressive monkey, an amiable dolphin or an analytical owl. I think you can immediately see that each trait has both strengths and weaknesses:
• Red is direct and a leader but can sometimes be strongwilled and domineering and may not always think about other perspectives. They are high achievers who are prepared to take risks.
• Yellow is expressive and spirited and a people person. They are always ready for new challenges but can sometimes come on too strong if they become too enthusiastic. They can be disorganised and come over as a dreamer.
• Green is supportive and dependable, but they can get stuck in a task and they do not like to assert themselves or take risks. They listen and are team players who can bring stability to a team.
To have an effective team, you do, of course, need a mixture of all of these personality types and traits
• Blue is analytical and a thinker but can be too rigid in their thinking and may come over as indecisive as they take more time to assess data. They are perfectionists and definitely not a risk taker.
Each personality also communicates in different ways and it’s useful to understand this in order that you can get the best out of your team.
• Red wants you to focus on the task, look at facts including options rather than feelings. Be businesslike, concise and clear in your communication. Don’t waste their time!
• Yellow wants you to focus on the relationship, and the story and less on the detail. Be willing to talk around the issue and always be enthusiastic!
• Green wants you to be logical with a clear plan with the emphasis of this being a team decision. They don’t want to be rushed and like to listen.
• Blue wants you to be logical and provide facts and evidence to support your tasks. Be prepared to discuss this at length and allow them time to evaluate the data.
To have an effective team, you do, of course, need a mixture of all of these personality types and traits. If you were all drivers then there would be constant conflict as everyone would want to push their own ideas, and if you were all analytical then no one would ever take any risk, and no decisions would ever be made!
There is a lot of training available to help you identify your personality colour, and tool kits to show you and your team how you should flex your own style to get the best out of each other.
As a firm of accountants, we spend a lot of time analysing our clients’ data and so you would have expected that the
majority of us would have been blue. However, I was really surprised at how the team were scattered across all these colours with a few of us sitting on the fence between two traits.
It was also interesting to see how the team moved away from being mostly blue when they first join us. As they progress through their career and their roles both within the team and with our clients’ changes, they move towards the other colours.
Only a small handful are just red, where they are careerdriven and looking for promotion. Interestingly, the two leaders of the team sit on the fence with one being a mixture of blue and red and the other yellow and red, demonstrating that these combinations can complement each other, as we are equally driven to lead the team together.
And if you haven’t already guessed where I sit yet, I am mostly a yellow with lots of red. Having a mixture of these traits equips me to deal with most of the situations I am faced with.
So, take the time to get to know your team better, and understand your strengths and weaknesses. Having a mixed team ensures that together everyone does achieve more, and you will be better prepared to face the changing world.
For more information on how Kreston Reeves works alongside clients to understand their goals and help them achieve their ambitions, please contact Alison Jones, Partner:
Call: +44 (0)33 0124 1399
Email: alison.jones@krestonreeves.com
Visit: www.krestonreeves.com
TAYLOR SWIFT
The phenomenon of ‘Swiftnomics’
American singer/songwriter Taylor Swift is an influential figure in popular culture and the subject of worldwide public interest. She is one of the world’s best-selling music artists with estimated global sales of 200 million records.
Seven of her albums have opened with over one million pre-sales in a week. She has appeared on lists of history’s greatest artists from publications such as Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Forbes. She finished last year with the accolade of being named Time ‘Person of the Year 2023’.
Everywhere she goes, her fans are right there – in such numbers, and with such devotion that they often make a sizeable contribution to the local economy of her tour venues.
Dynamic looks at the global phenomenon of ‘Swiftnomics’.
“Her fans are now exclusively streaming ‘Taylor’s Version’ of her tracks, ensuring that she gets the credit and revenue from their streams”
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13th 1989 in West Reading, Pennsylvania, USA; her parents, Scott and Andrea naming her after legendary singer-songwriter James Taylor. She spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania, and her summers at her family’s holiday home in neighbouring New Jersey where she occasionally performed acoustic songs at a local coffee shop.
As a child, she performed in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions and traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Her first music love was country music, especially the works of artists such as Shania Twain, Patsy Cline, LeAnn Rimes, and the Dixie Chicks, and she spent weekends as a child performing at local festivals and events.
RECORDING
At the age of 14, her family moved to Nashville, Tennesseehome of country music. Taylor signed with Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Records in 2005; Taylor’s father, a stockbroker, purchased a 3% stake in the fledgling record company for $120,000. She soon recorded her first album, entitled ‘Taylor Swift’, writing or co-writing all of the songs.
Released in October 2006, ‘Taylor Swift’ peaked at number five on the US Billboard 200, on which it spent 157 weeks — the longest stay on the chart by any release in the US in the 2000s decade. Taylor became the first female country music artist to write or co-write every track on a platinum-certified (one million sales or downloads) debut album.
She spent the next decade writing and recording a series of million-selling albums, including ‘1989’, ‘Fearless’, ‘Reputation’, ‘Red’ and others. With every album came a growing fanbase, and more praise and accolades.
Taylor Swift left Big Machine after recording Reputation in 2017, signing with Republic Records the next year. On her
departure from Big Machine, she wanted to buy the copyright to her master recordings, but agreeable terms couldn’t be met. They were ultimately sold to a company called Shamrock Holdings, who paid a reported $300m for them.
Despite many attempts to do so, Taylor never bought the rights to the master recordings of that music. Instead, she embarked on a huge project to re-record her own ‘Taylor’s Version’ of her albums in 2021. She has been able to do this because she retained the copyright in the music and the lyrics, which gives her the right to re-record the songs.
Swift has managed her re-recording process so effectively that her fans are now exclusively streaming ‘Taylor’s Version’ of her tracks, ensuring that she gets the credit and revenue from their streams.
+COPYRIGHT PROTECTION
In any song, there are multiple components which are each, separately, protected by copyright:
• the lyrics are protected;
• the music is protected; and
• the combination of the lyrics and the music (the produced song that you stream or hear on the radio) is protected.
The copyright owner can then decide whether to licence or assign their rights to third parties, and that is often tied up in an artist’s recording contract because the company producing the song will want to derive some income from it.
As an example, on Taylor’s original Red album, she released ‘All Too Well’, and it was streamed around 39.4 million times. On Red (Taylor’s Version), she released a longer version of the same song, and this has been streamed around 450 million times – and it’s a ten-minute song.
She has been able to respond in this way because of her global reputation and the unrivalled engagement that she has with her fanbase. It seems unlikely that other artists will be as successful if they try to take the same steps, so ensuring that artists understand what rights they have and, importantly, what they are signing away at the start of their careers is essential.
She has won admiration from so many corners of business – inside and outside of music – for fighting back at the monolithic, often misogynistic music industry. She – as all artists do - wanted control of her creative output, and eventually won that battle, though it took a lot out of her.
Since 2023, Taylor Swift has been on her Eras Tour. The tour is creating all kinds of waves, financial and seismic (literally, in the case of the latter – a recent show in the US was measured at 2.3 by seismologists). It was estimated to have boosted UK spending by almost £1bn in 2024, with more than a million fans seeing her perform live.
She commands large audiences on stage without having to rely on extravagant dance routines. According to V magazine’s Greg Krelenstein, she possesses, “a rare gift of turning a stadium spectacle into an intimate setting”, irrespective of whether she is “plucking a guitar or leading an army of dancers.”
“No woman, with maybe the exception of Dolly Parton, has stuck two fingers up at the industry in such a manner”
Spanning six continents, the tour hit the UK for 15 dates in June and August, with fans spending an average of £848 on tickets, travel, accommodation and other assorted merchandise, according to Barclays. The story is largely the same in her home country.
No woman, with maybe the exception of Dolly Parton, has stuck two fingers up at the industry in such a manner, and sought to wrest complete creative control from faceless suits – without selling themselves short or being a puppet to mediocrity or corporate interests.
SWIFTNOMICS
Her fans – ‘Swifties’ – are crushingly loyal, and she can count several celebrities among them; not least of which, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, who appeared in her 2020 music video - ‘The Man’.
While her jump in popularity can be traced back to her 2017 Reputation album, her latest tour has seen the effect of her fanbase go off the charts.
The Eras Tour came on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic during which personal savings of US households hit a record high and the tourism industry suffered significantly. When tickets for the Eras Tour went on sale last year, it crashed websites and led to sold-out hotels in host cities around the world.
While Swift fans aren’t representative of any given national population, they’ve been credited with exemplifying that consumers were willing to spend their pandemic savings on tourism and entertainment despite fears of a potential recession.
“One study showed that the average spend for an Eras Tour attendee is $1,327 (£1,023)”
Eras Tour attendees – averaging around 54,000 fans per concert during the first leg of the US tour – travelled to cities hosting Swift’s concerts and, like their UK counterparts, spent their money on hotels, transportation, food, merchandise and more, again, helping to revive local tourism.
One study showed that the average spend for an Eras Tour attendee in the US is $1,327 (£1,023) – higher than UK fans’ expenditure.
After the singer-songwriter held three concerts in Chicago in June 2023, Illinois Governor, J.B. Pritzker, and leading tourism leaders announced that the state had broken its hotel revenue record thanks in part to Taylor’s visit. Indeed, every host city around the world that has hosted Taylor Swift since her tour started in 2023 has noticed a dramatic spike in its local economy while she is resident. The tourism figures soon return to normal once her entourage has left town.
Swift’s popular success is not just confined to the world of music. Her mere presence at American football games to watch her boyfriend Travis Kelce has been credited with raising NFL viewing figures.
Dr Peter Brooks, chief behavioural scientist at Barclays, said: “When it comes to cultural icons like Taylor Swift –like we saw with Elvis and Beatlemania in the 50s and 60s – supporters have such a strong connection to the artist and to the rest of the fandom that the desire to spend becomes even more powerful.
“For non-fans, £848 may seem like an enormous amount to splash out on a concert, but for Eras Tour ticket-holders, every pound they spend is an investment in the memories they’ll create.”
FORBES LIST
Swift herself entered the Forbes rich list for the first time in April this year, having attained billionaire status in October 2023, becoming the world’s first musician to achieve the milestone solely based on their songs and performances.
Forbes said there were a record 2,781 billionaires for 2024. The figure is 141 more than last year and 26 more than the previous record set in 2021. It added the elite were richer than ever - with a collective wealth of $14.2tn (£11.3tn).
Taylor entered the rich list after achieving megastar status. She stole the show at this year’s Grammy Awards, becoming the first performer to win the prize for album of the year four times. Her album 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was also the best-selling vinyl LP of 2023.
PHILANTHROPY
Swift’s philanthropy is legendary. She was noted for her generosity very early in her career, way before the megastardom status she enjoys today. Her largesse is from the heart; not some PR playbook.
The list of beneficiaries is as deep as it is wide. Many charities in Tennessee have received her donations, especially those communities caught in the annual hurricanes and floods which sweep through the deep south at the end of every summer.
In 2015, the international organisation ‘Do Something’ ranked her top of their ‘Gone Good’ List for donations and generosity. During the Eras Tour, Swift donated to food banks at every stop. Her donation to a food bank in Cardiff provided emergency food parcels to 925 people. She donated to the charity after she performed in Cardiff in June. Rachel Biggs, the CEO of Cardiff Foodbank, said they are
When Taylor Swift left her first record label in 2017, she attempted to buy back her own copyright. The company, Big Machine, was prepared to sell, but on terms that only put Taylor back in a harness. She then decided to re-record her albums that she’d recorded with Big Machine. So far, she has re-recorded four, with two to go. Since their re-release, the ‘Taylor’s Versions’ have all outsold and out downloaded the original releases by up to a factor of ten, meaning Taylor Swift gets to keep all of the royalties from her own creative output. Respect the artist.
incredibly grateful to the singer “for shining a light on the global issue of poverty”. The charity said her donation allowed them to buy one and a half articulated lorries full of food.
LEGACY
It’s highly likely that the true extent of her legacy has yet to be known, although there are several chapters written already. She is 35 next month, is on tour, and has – at least her fanbase certainly hope so – several more albums to record, and two of her own albums to re-record.
Her songs, one fan said, reach out on the most mundane level of people’s everyday existences, yet with perfect pitch, grace, and to so many. She is an inspiration to women and girls across so many cultures. Her music, the same Swiftie said, is absolutely brilliant (subjective, but heartfelt). She connects with her fans on so many levels, musically, emotionally, spiritually and - and this is the clincher - personally.
“Her largesse is from the heart; not some PR playbook”
Since the days of MySpace, Taylor Swift has had personal conversations online with people in her fanbase; a discourse that can make that one fan feel like they are the only fan; a special fan. Her approach to managing her brand – and the loyalty that instills – and business ventures provide a fresh lens through which to view economic principles.
And that is her strength.
Her accolades include 14 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, 40 American Music Awards, 39 Billboard Music Awards, and 23 MTV Video Music Awards; she has won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year, and the IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year a record four times each.
It is now approaching 70 years since ‘Rock & Roll’, or popular music first became known. In this time, no female –certainly not in the English-speaking pop world – has ever had the adoration or power Taylor Swift currently enjoys. Her current popularity is unrivalled; in music terms, she is up there historically with Beatles and Elvis; in social and cultural terms, she has more sway than almost every well-intentioned public icon on the planet.
This sway is not just in the music business, but across so many different cultures and societies. In the history of pop, Madonna may come close to holding this sway, one might postulate. Ish.
But every Swiftie will argue with that.
❛ ❛
When life brings big winds of change that almost blow you over, close your eyes, hang on tight, and believe.”
Lisa Lieberman-Wang
PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM ALGORITHMS
Social media platforms could be required to exclude young people from algorithmic content as part of a new bill aimed at curbing addictive online behaviour. The Safer Phones Bill, now under debate by MPs, has garnered cross-party support. This comes in response to mounting evidence linking social media use among young people with declining mental health.
Labour MP Josh MacAlister, a former social worker who introduced thBill, said, “The evidence is clear – children spending hours doomscrolling causes significant harm. We need social media regulations similar to seatbelt laws for children’s safety.”
IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
GOOD NEWS IN THE TREATMENT OF CERVICAL CANCER
A new approach to cervical cancer treatment could reduce the risk of death by 40%, according to University College London (UCL) researchers. Their study found that giving a short chemotherapy course before standard chemoradiation lowered the risk of cancer recurrence by 35%. Lead investigator Dr. Mary McCormack emphasised that the method uses affordable, approved drugs and has already been adopted by some cancer centres, urging its wider implementation.
THE ‘UNIVERSITY OF DYSLEXIC THINKING’ LAUNCHED
WEEKEND EXERCISE
Good news for those who struggle to exercise regularly: a weekend burst of brisk activity can be as beneficial as frequent exercise. A study of nearly 90,000 UK Biobank participants found that “weekend warriors,” who cram workouts into the weekend, enjoy similar health benefits to those exercising throughout the week, lowering their risk of over 200 health conditions, including heart disease.
The world’s first ‘University of Dyslexic Thinking’ has launched online, giving people the chance to explore how dyslexic thinking can be a strength. Research shows that those with dyslexia often score highly in areas like communication, creativity, and problemsolving. The free course, available to all, is designed to develop these skills. Created by the charity Made By Dyslexia and Virgin, it’s hosted by the Open University. Virgin’s founder, Richard Branson, who’s dyslexic, highlighted how these skills are becoming more valuable in today’s AI-driven world.
EMERGENCY ROOMS WILL HAVE DOMESTIC ABUSE SPECIALISTS
From next year, domestic abuse specialists will be embedded in teams responding to 999 emergency calls, the UK government has announced. The new advisers will assess risks in cases involving rape, domestic, and sexual abuse, ensuring appropriate support and protection. This initiative is part of the government’s plan to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.
DISEASES ELIMINATED
Pakistan and India have both eliminated trachoma as a public health issue, marking significant milestones in global health. The World Health Organization (WHO) hailed Pakistan’s achievement as “monumental,” with sanitation improvements and antibiotics playing a key role in eradicating the leading infectious cause of blindness. Trachoma is spread through contaminated fingers or flies that contact infected eyes.
India’s success follows a series of health interventions, reducing trachoma-related blindness from 4% in 2005 to 0.008% by 2018. Meanwhile, Brazil has eliminated lymphatic filariasis, a mosquito-borne parasitic disease, through drug distribution, vector control, and surveillance, according to the WHO.
PEACE ADVOCATES AWARDED NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
Nihon Hidankyo, an organisation of survivors from Nagasaki and Hiroshima, has won the Nobel Peace Prize for their fierce campaigning to end the threat of nuclear war that so dramatically scarred their lives. Coming at a time when humanity lies more heavily between the crosshairs of the bomb than perhaps any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, the award is a powerful reiteration: that a nuclear war cannot be won, and must never be fought.
Founded in 1956, the organisation’s chief activity is sending survivors of the bombings around the world to share testimony and contribute to what Chairman of the Nobel Committee Joergen Watne Frydnes called the “nuclear taboo.”
CANARY WHARF TRANSFORMED
Canary Wharf, London’s iconic financial district, may seem an unlikely spot for a rewilding project, but it has been transformed into an “urban oasis” to enhance biodiversity and improve worker wellbeing. Originally built in the 1980s as a hub for investment bankers, Canary Wharf is also home to wildlife such as wading birds, waterfowl, and eels, thanks to its location along the River Thames. This made it the perfect site for the Eden Dock initiative, which includes floating islands and mossy sculptures designed to bring nature back into the city and create a greener environment for all.
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”
Bill Waterson
SEA TURTLE NESTS IN GREECE REACH RECORD NUMBERS
The loggerhead turtle, once nearing extinction, has enjoyed a record breeding season on Zakynthos, Greece, reflecting a wider Mediterranean resurgence. This summer, 2,350 Caretta caretta nests were recorded in Zakynthos marine park, Greece’s first protected area. Conservation efforts, including habitat
protection and anti-poaching measures, have contributed to similar population increases across the Mediterranean and Cape Verde. Ecologist Nadia Andreanidou stressed the importance of continued government support to sustain this progress and ensure the species remains safe from future threats.
Pippa Moyle, CEO and Founder of the City Girl Network on how people are finding better appreciation nearer to home
COMMUNITY IS THE NEW INFLUENCER
Influencer: the Marmite of marketing strategies; a $24bn industry with countless statistics proving its effectiveness, with a growing culture of skepticism over the authenticity of influencers themselves. But, change is afoot. As world-renowned marketing teams invest in a hyper-local strategy, Influencers have changed their names to Content Creators, adding ‘building a community’ to their ‘day in the life’ videos.
“When you’re next examining your marketing strategy, consider this: with a community, you’re not just speaking to your target audience, you’re investing in them”
As the stigma of loneliness begins to dissolve, a consumer’s attention is switching from finding para-social relationships with individual influencers to actual relationships in a community. People are no longer afraid to admit they’re looking for connections – you only need to look at the year-on-year rise of engagement within the City Girl Network local communities to spot that.
With that attention shift comes a sharp transfer of trust into community recommendations, and marketing spend
is starting to follow it. Look at Sweaty Betty sponsoring These Girls Run, Vitality sponsoring ParkRun, MPB supporting our very own City Girl Creatives and hundreds of businesses joining the City Girl Network Directory. Our advertisers have found they’ve also attracted and retained talent, just to add a bonus point.
Of course, B2B marketing has long embraced the power of community influence. Loch Associates has had over £100,000 worth of business leads just from my own personal recommendations due to its investment in local business communities like Platinum Business. I became a Xero and SumUp customer because they both sponsor Lewes FC.
. It’s a signal that they share the same values, care about their customer, and will offer the same loyalty that’s expected of them. It’s also reflective of the rise of Corporate Social Responsibility policies, and the call for them to go way beyond a tool for attracting the right talent. 84% of millennials believe it’s vital for a business to make a positive impact on society, beyond just making a profit (Deloitte, 2024).
Communities are part of someone’s identity, influencers represent their interests. It’s why Mrs Hinch, ‘Queen of Cleaning’, has been so effective: she has her mighty Hinch Army. Nearly half a million people share, discuss and evaluate cleaning product recommendations, building genuine relationships with each other and vastly increasing the sales of sponsors like Zoflora as a result.
There will always be a place in society for powerful and influential para-social relationships with individuals like Mrs Hinch; they can be great tools for information, education, entertainment and advocacy. But the Hinch Army community is the real purchasing power and it’s the recommendation economy that they’re really led by.
It’s no surprise that Facebook’s rebrand has local tools and the recommendations at the heart of its technology, recognising the sustainability of community purchasing power.
It’s also no surprise that, in 2024, we’re seeing a shift back to the familiar: emotional connections through local communities. With an anxiety-inducing news cycle of political change, wars, natural disasters, and a cost of living crisis, people are finding more safety, comfort and trust in a collective.
We’ve found that the success of our newly-launched deals and discount app, the Friends Pass, has found success not just through community support, but community engagement. The more you share your experience with a product, the more you want others to experience it too (which, coincidentally, is why I also have Zoflora in my cupboard).
It’s harder to measure the ROI of community marketing over an online individual influencer. A community is a whole ecosystem of individual lives, whose online conversations move to the real world – in offices, on buses, at hairdressers. It goes far beyond the UTM parameters on a YouTube video.
“People don’t just buy from people. They buy from people who invest in the communities they care about”
At least 30% of attendees to our active events are wearing Lululemon and Sweaty Betty as a direct result of them investing in local running groups. A group of London Girls have switched to BarryM Face Calming drops because of their involvement in a recent City Girl Network event. My neighbours have got Vitality Health Insurance because their friends go to Parkrun.
When you’re next examining your marketing strategy, consider this: with a community, you’re not just speaking to your target audience, you’re investing in them. And they, in turn, will invest in you.
There is an ambition cap holding female founders back. Emma Gage suggests ways on how to step it up
ARE YOU AIMING HIGH ENOUGH?
Social conditioning from a young age keeps girls neat and contained. We should be humble and ‘lady-like’, we need to play nicely and create harmony. Do what’s expected with no big surprises.
No one likes a woman who’s too full of herself, right?
So what happens when a woman enters the world of business ownership, where owning your value is critical; where developing a personal brand that’s full of opinion and points of view, is exactly what gets you notoriety, or where bucking the norms of your category and standing alone, is what creates a valuable brand?
game of selling their services, rather than building a powerful brand and business that’s bigger than the thing they do.
That keeps women stuck for too long in the comfortable weeds of the day-to-day, being the ‘doer’ rather than the CEO or visionary. The place of frustration, dysfunction, burnout and capped ambition.
❛❛ We need a stampede of female-unicorns ready to change the status quo ❜❜
The barriers are real at every level, so it’s not just about mindset. The systemic divides in women’s access to help at every stage –from start-up funding* through to platforms for profile building, to being considered by buyers to exit – means that everything feels hard.
It feels antithetical and deeply uncomfortable. It causes many women to opt-out, to dilute the extent of their ambition and to play it safe. They’ll wait to earn their space, rather than just claiming it. They’ll play a safer
In my experience, having worked with hundreds of women starting, scaling and exiting businesses, when women curb their own ambition, it’s rarely due to a lack of desire and more often about a lack of belief in their ability to leap across the divide.
And when women keep their ambition on the vision board, rather than on the plan, they take themselves out of the race and everyone loses out. They don’t get to stretch themselves and to realise what they’re capable of, they and their families don’t get to benefit from the rewards and the world doesn’t get the impact of these women’s ideas and influence.
This is why we need a stampede of female-unicorns ready to change the status quo. We won’t get there by playing a quiet, women-only game online, or by waiting on the sidelines until it’s our turn, or until the systemic barriers drop. It has to be something we grab with both hands today – and it requires a completely fresh mindset shift.
Whether you want to create a $billion ‘unicorn’ business or not, ramping up the scale of your ambition changes the energy in your business. If you’d like to join the stampede, here’s a question to consider –
Q. If you were building your business to sell it (and let’s think about a lucrative exit), how would that change things today?
I have some ideas.
You’d probably spend a lot less time worrying about your own credibility, experience and abilities and a lot more time thinking about building a business that’s bigger than you. You might hire, evolve your offering, work out how you could create partnerships and affiliations to augment what you have already. It would put you into challenge solving mode and take you out of self-reflection.
You’d know that being a good version of the rest of your category was no longer going to cut it, so you’d be looking out for a high-value space to own. You’d have to have a point of view on where your category space was headed and
how you can leverage that. You’d be positioning you and your business for a real valuable difference.
You’d obsess over the size and impact of your profile. You’d think bigger than a social media following and you’d be looking to get strategic about what you stand for, how you communicate it and the channels that would do that most credibly. You’d be visible, yes, but with a robust plan behind it.
You’d create assets and intellectual property, because you’d know that when you’re no longer there with your hands on everything, the business would need to run beautifully. You’d make your thinking, your brand positioning and your ideas tangible. You’d be creating valuable assets to sell.
This is the kind of thinking that changes the energy for the founder, as well as the real-world impact of the business. It’s the kind of momentum that demands attention and sits differently amongst its competitive set. It’s the way, as female founders, with credible perspectives and ideas, that we create the stampede.
Who’s in?
*In 2023 female-founded businesses received an average of £763,000 in funding, compared to £4.7 million for a maleled equivalent. In 2022, only 2% of all venture capital funding, went to female-businesses.
Emma Gage is a brand and business strategist for female entrepreneurs and the founder of The Wild Ones, which has a mission to blow the gender-based disruption gap wide open and start a stampede of female unicorns. She helps create disruptive business strategies for women who want to grow unicorn businesses.
www.thewildones.io
❛❛ The barriers are real at every level, so it’s not just about mindset. The systemic divides in women’s access to help at every stage ❜❜
In today’s digital age, it’s easy to be swept up in the ‘Instaperfect’ lifestyles we see online—perfect bodies, perfect homes, perfect careers. By Laura Tristram
MIND THE TRAP
Don’t strive for perfection if you value sanity
The pressure to appear flawless online and in every aspect of our lives is taking a significant toll on our wellbeing. Nearly two million people in the UK are currently on waiting lists for mental health services, with the average wait for support 703 days.
Undoubtedly, the online culture of rising perfectionism is a contributing factor. Perfectionism has escalated by 33% since 1989, according to a University of Bath study of 40,000 students across universities in the UK, US and Canada, as online life pushes expectations towards unattainable standards. But as we strive for these ideals, we must ask, at what cost do they come?
While aiming for excellence can motivate, perfectionism is a dangerous mindset that can lead to severe self-criticism,
burnout, and an inability to appreciate personal achievements. It equates self-worth with productivity and success, often leaving individuals trapped in a cycle of dissatisfaction and mental distress. Understanding the nature of perfectionism and recognising its impact, particularly on women, is crucial for breaking this destructive cycle and fostering a healthier, more balanced approach to life.
WHAT IS PERFECTIONISM?
Perfectionism is characterised by the unceasing pursuit of unrealistic goals, leading to an endless loop of self-criticism. Perfectionists are harsh judges of their performance and often fail to recognise their achievements; there are three main types of perfectionism:
“Perfectionism is a 20-ton shield that we lug around, thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from taking flight.”
– Brené Brown
• Self-Oriented Perfectionism: Individuals set excessively high standards for themselves, becoming their own worst critics. This often results in an inability to complete tasks as they never seem ‘good enough.’
• Socially-Prescribed Perfectionism: The belief that society or specific individuals expect one to meet impossible standards. This form can be particularly damaging, as it fosters a sense of never being able to satisfy external expectations.
• Other-Oriented Perfectionism: Setting unrealistic standards for others, leading to frustration and disappointment when they fail to meet these expectations. This form can damage relationships and hinder effective teamwork.
AT WHAT COST?
People who strive for perfection are often caught in a cycle of self-doubt and insecurity, feeling inadequate despite their accomplishments. This can erode self-esteem, making it difficult to appreciate their worth beyond their achievements. Moreover, societal expectations and media portrayals exacerbate these feelings, presenting an ideal of the ‘perfect woman’ that is impossible to attain.
AVOIDING THE PERFECTIONISM TRAP
To navigate the fine line between striving for excellence and falling into the perfectionism trap, here are five questions to ask yourself when working on a task:
1. Is this goal realistic?
Perfectionists often set unattainably high goals. Ask yourself if your current objective is achievable within the given constraints. If not, adjust your expectations to a more realistic level.
2. Am I prioritising progress over perfection?
Focus on the process and your progress rather than a perfect outcome. Celebrate small wins and recognise that growth often comes from learning through mistakes.
3. What would I say to a friend in this situation?
Perfectionists tend to be overly critical of themselves while being compassionate towards others. Practice extending that same kindness to yourself. Would you judge a friend as harshly as you judge yourself?
4. Is the time and effort I’m investing proportional to the value of this task?
Perfectionists can get caught up in minor details. Consider whether the time and effort you put into a task are justified by its importance. It’s essential to recognise when ‘good enough’ is, indeed, enough.
5. Am I afraid of judgement or failure?
“Don’t let the pursuit of perfection hold you back from living a joyful and fulfilling life”
Fear of criticism often drives perfectionism. Reflect on whether your efforts are driven by a genuine desire to do well or by a fear of how you’ll be perceived. Remember, it’s okay not to be perfect; vulnerability is a part of being human.
BREAKING FREE
Overcoming perfectionism starts with understanding that perfection is an illusion. Embrace the idea that self-worth is not tied to achievements. Practice mindfulness to stay grounded in the present and self-compassion to counteract negative self-talk. If perfectionism overwhelms, seeking professional help can provide tailored strategies and support to develop healthier thinking patterns.
Perfectionism can feel like a relentless pursuit, and it often leads to dissatisfaction and poor mental health. By recognising the different forms of perfectionism and reflecting on how it manifests in our lives, we can begin to challenge these harmful tendencies. Remember, aiming for progress rather than perfection is not a sign of complacency but a step toward a more balanced, fulfilling life. So, the next time you find yourself caught in the perfectionism trap, pause and ask: Is this worth my wellbeing?
Don’t let the pursuit of perfection hold you back from living a joyful and fulfilling life.
Laura Tristram is the Mental Health & Wellbeing Lead at Lumii.life, dedicated to promoting mental wellbeing and breaking the stigma surrounding mental health issues.
In our exclusive Spotlight feature, we highlight women who are doing good things in their community. They’re not always seen but we think they should be
SP OTLIGH T
Honor Barratt
Honor is the Chief Executive Officer at Birchgrove, a developer of later-life homes
Ten years ago, I had a hugely successful career in television. I had worked my way up from a clueless runner, fresh out of university to group Managing Director of a 150-person agency.
My work was super exciting, but at 40 I was a bit restless. Then the private equity firm who’d invested in my company asked me to take a look at one of their struggling portfolios, some later-living developments.
I was instantly hooked and abandoned the vacuous world of TV to throw myself headfirst into tackling the problems surrounding housing for older people. There’s a mad obsession with home ownership in this country. But many older people, especially women who’ve been widowed, don’t have enough left in the tank for another house buy late in life. There’s a massive demand for rental properties suitable for those who are older but want to be part of a buzzing community rather than live in a dreary care home before they need to.
After taking up the role of CEO at Birchgrove, it took a lot of hard graft to get our first development in Sidcup up and running in 2019. We’ve since opened two more developments and have six more in the pipeline, but I’m still really proud of that first property, especially now it’s at full occupancy.
“I love challenging the status quo. My mother recently moved into one of our developments and dyed her hair pink to celebrate”
I love challenging the status quo. The look on people’s faces when they visit a development for the first time and find pensioners with FOMO rushing to the bar at opening time or busting it out in the gym is priceless. My mother recently moved into one of our developments and dyed her hair pink to celebrate.
I got to the top in two very male-dominated industries, partly by saying ‘yes’ to everything that came my way. Ironically, my belief in the power of ‘yes’ has sometimes been my downfall. Last year, a planning decision didn’t go our way and I was gobsmacked until a member of my team gave it to me straight. He said people had been scared to tell me a ‘no’ was coming as I only ever wanted to hear yes.
I’ve since hired two senior team members whose brief is to say ‘no’ when necessary. Unfortunately, they do this more often than I’d like, but hopefully this is making me a better leader!
www.birchgrove.life
SP OTLIGH T
Catrina Baker-Bassett
Catrina is Managing Director at digital products experts, Dabapps
If you’d told me 15 years ago I’d be working in tech, I flat out wouldn’t have believed you. Ten years into my career at DabApps, and holding the role of Managing Director for the past two, I still can’t quite believe it myself sometimes – what a journey it’s been so far.
In 2012, having worked in various marketing, sales and business development roles, I knew I wanted a change and a new challenge. A friend encouraged me to join her at an event for women in tech, and a whole new world of opportunities opened up. I made new connections and interviewed with the founders of DabApps – at the time a team of six looking for their first non-technical hire – someone to help with any and every other aspect of growing a small business. That was my cue to enter stage left; I got the job.
Joining a technical agency with very little understanding of what software actually was posed quite a challenge, and led to a steep learning curve! But I instantly loved it. Working with customers, understanding their world, and coming up with solutions to simplify and automate processes is really rewarding. It’s hugely satisfying to see the results of successful projects which help our customers grow and succeed. Learning about so many different industries is one of the best things about agency life.
I also really enjoyed being surrounded by people who knew so much more than me and wanted to explain in words I could understand, not technical jargon. I loved the culture of the company – the importance of work-life balance, of giving people opportunities to succeed, but with an understanding that we all get things wrong and make mistakes sometimes.
We work hard to maintain these values, and I love being somewhere that places good communication, gender parity and transparency at the same level as the quality of the work we do, our operational processes and our client relationships. We need a diverse and happy team to do our best work.
“I love being somewhere that places good communication, gender parity and transparency at the same level as the quality of the work we do”
“I’m passionate in my belief that a diverse team and equity in the workplace are critical to our business’s success”
Over the past decade, I’ve been able to hone my management skills in the STEM arena and build teams that do great things. My original focus was project and product management and I still really enjoy the work and processes associated with these roles.
This includes figuring out with stakeholders what success looks like for them, how to make experiences better for the people using the software, how to incorporate meaningful AI and other technologies as the landscape changes. I love seeing the end results and being part of a team that wants to deliver exceptional digital products that make life a little better, and solve problems.
I’m passionate in my belief that a diverse team and equity in the workplace are critical to our business’s success and do my best to ensure that we remain true to those elements in our practices and ethos. I’m writing this whilst hosting a codebar workshop at our office in central Brighton, which feels somewhat serendipitous.
Codebar’s goal is ‘to enable minority group members to learn programming in a safe and collaborative environment and expand their career opportunities.’ I think this is the hill I’ll die on.
I’m also on the advisory board for TechNative, a hub for developing new talent, with a focus on closing the skills gap and removing barriers to those currently under-represented in the industry. With my wonderful colleagues at DabApps, I help run work experience programmes every year with local colleges. It is rewarding and hard work in equal measure! I’m about to start mentoring with The Girls’ Network, and can’t wait to see what that experience brings. I’m sure it’ll be as much a learning experience for me as it is for my mentee.
As I reflect on my tenth year at DabApps, I can say that I’m really proud of our team, the work we do and our great reputation. Bring on the next ten years!
www.dabapps.com
CATEGORIES
BUSINESS GROWTH AWARD
BUSINESSWOMAN OF THE YEAR
CEO OF THE YEAR
COMMUNITY HERO AWARD
COMPANY OF THE YEAR
EMPLOYER OF THE YEAR
INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR
INSPIRATIONAL AWARD
LARGE BUSINESS OF THE YEAR
SME BUSINESS OF THE YEAR
SUSTAINABILITY CHAMPION AWARD
FUTURE TALENT OF THE YEAR
BEST NEW BUSINESS AWARD
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AWARD
PROPERTY PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR
WOMEN IN TECH AWARD
BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE AWARD
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
My business isn’t unique How do I stand out from the
With an estimated 359 million companies worldwide in 2023, a significant increase on 328 million in 2020, it’s highly unlikely that any business started today is going to be unique. So how can you make sure your business stands out, when it would be so easy to blend into a sea of sameness?
The first step is to recognise why you want to stand out. It’s no good simply wanting to be different for the sake of being different. It’s about the desire to be innovative - either in terms of your offerings, delivery or marketing - so that your business is actually doing things differently and creating better outcomes for your customers, whatever those may be.
to after-care. Great after-sales support can turn onetime buyers into lifelong customers and brand advocates. Streamline processes, train staff, promptly resolve any issues and remove friction from the buyer’s journey.
If you want to stay relevant and top of your game (and to stay profitable, you need to aim for this, always), then your business offerings, branding, marketing and processes all need to be reviewed regularly and reimagined accordingly. You need to pay attention to what everybody else in your niche, or selling to a similar customer base, is doing – and do things differently.
“The world needs progressive thinking within all industries, to avoid things standing still”
Innovation can take many forms. It doesn’t (and shouldn’t) be limited purely to technology. In fact, discouraging other forms of innovation is dangerous, the world needs progressive thinking within all industries to avoid things standing still. Innovation is also an important way to protect your business.
If you create something that has Intellectual Property, you can apply to protect it, meaning that nobody else can claim it as theirs. If you’re delivering a service, focus on delivering an exceptional customer experience from pre-purchase
You may even want to niche down further, so that you become THE business servicing one key segment of your industry. Your finger needs to be well and truly on the pulse and you need to keep one eye on the competition as you continuously challenge yourself to do better.
If you’ve compared your offerings and processes and they’re pretty similar to the rest of your industry, possibly through necessity, then there are still ways you can create standout. Take a good look at your branding and marketing activities. Is there a certain aesthetic that’s all too common in your industry? Are you vying for attention in all the same places?
unique the crowd?
By Niki Hutchinson
If the answer is yes, this is great news! You simply need to lean in to what makes your business, your business. Perhaps it’s your values, your backstory or your brand personality that’s different. Dig deep enough and there will likely be several things you could leverage and shine the spotlight on, that are part of your individuality.
“If, once your visual brand has been created, there’s a sniff of familiarity about it, keep working until it’s gone”
Take these things (and there will be some things) and use them to define your brand. This is what makes you unique, even if you’re not yet aware of it. Define your brand values (what you stand for), your brand personality, tone of voice, your brand essence (what’s at the absolute heart of what your business is all about, why it exists), the benefits of working with your business, rather than a competitor, the evidence you have to back this up.
Then take all of this information and use it to decide what a brand like yours could look like visually. Unless you’re a graphic designer, then it’s likely you’ll need professional help at this point.
If, once your visual brand has been created, there’s a sniff of familiarity about it, a hint of ‘I’ve seen that somewhere before’, keep working until it’s gone. This is crucial! You don’t want any of your precious marketing efforts to go to waste, which they will if your brand looks like anyone else’s.
Once you’ve done all of the above, it’s time to use content marketing to showcase your brand personality, not only visually but also tonally. What do you have to say that’s different to everybody else? What interesting things can you share in exciting ways? Create valuable content and think about the different formats you’re going to deliver it in, perhaps a blog, podcast, or regular in-person sessions. By providing value beyond your core offerings, you position your business as an authority in your field.
So while having a unique product or service can be advantageous, it’s not the only path to creating standout out in a competitive market. By focusing on the strategies above, you can differentiate your business based on how you operate, the experience you provide, and the values you embody.
Remember, success often comes not simply from being different, but from making a difference in the lives of your customers - and communicating that difference effectively.
Niki Hutchison is a Marketing Strategist, CEO of Enjoy Marketing® and host of podcast ‘From Overlooked To Fully Booked®’ www.enjoymarketing.agency
FURTHER READING…
10 SECRETS TO DEVELOP YOUR CAREER
Move Up or Move On: 10 Secrets to Develop Your Career by Angela Lane and Sergey Gorbatov.
Angela Lane is a senior executive with more than 30 years of experience leading global Human Resource functions. Sergey Gorbatov, Ph.D., is an accomplished consultant, educator, and thought leader in the field of talent management.
Angela has led transformational change of the talent landscape across a range of Fortune 250 companies. She is a behavioural economist by training, with additional qualifications in industrial law and business administration. Her work has appeared in a range of HR and Business publications. Sergei has more than two decades of experience in prominent roles within multinationals such as AbbVie, PMI, and Shell. Career choices are tough.
The challenge often isn’t the decision itself but the uncertainty about the consequences. Our minds spiral into ‘what ifs?’ turning even simple choices into stressful dilemmas. Many of us also hesitate to seek help, thinking we should have the answers ourselves. This isolation only makes the process
SUCCESSFUL CAREER STRATEGY: AN HR PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE TO REACH YOUR DREAM JOB (BUSINESS GUIDES ON THE GO) by Sven Sommerlatte Springer (2023)
This book offers a basic methodology as well as practical tools and a variety of case studies that are helpful for the development and implementation of a career strategy. It helps to match talents with aspirations in order to encourage candidates to make courageous career decisions, and offers guidance on how to choose the professional environment that best fits personal preferences. The book is primarily aimed at young professionals who want to develop their career in the most effective way.
harder. Then there’s the complexity – career decisions shape how we’ll spend years of our lives, so the stakes feel high. Often, people lack the self-awareness needed to align choices with personal goals. Add in societal pressures, family obligations, and the need to balance work and personal life, and the weight of each decision can feel overwhelming.
We’ve seen these struggles firsthand. Questions like, “How many times can I say no to relocation?” or “Will I be passed over for promotion if I go part-time?” are common. This is why we advocate for The Long Game approach.
In Move Up or Move On, the authors emphasise that careers are marathons, not sprints. There are times to acceler-
I WISH I’D KNOWN THIS: 6 CAREER-ACCELERATING SECRETS FOR WOMEN LEADERS by Brenda Wensil & Kathryn Heath Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2022)
Uncover the six blind spots that derail women’s career paths and learn strategies to effectively overcome them for an impactful, sustainable career. Professional women are subject to blind spots - obstacles that can minimise career potential, impact, or advancement. Authors and executive coaches Brenda Wensil and Kathryn Heath have spent decades coaching more than 800 women and working with women executives, middle managers, and professionals across industries and age groups. In this book, they outline six challenges women commonly face on their professional journeys.
ate and times to slow down. The key is knowing when each is needed. Strategic planning – not rushed decisions – ensures that your career remains aligned with both personal and professional priorities.
Trade-offs are challenging because they involve deep emotions. We fear missing out while peers progress, or we dread letting others down. This tension makes us feel like we’re sacrificing either our career or personal life. The stress and anxiety often stem from a ‘now or never’ mindset.
But playing the long game means making decisions based on a clear, evolving view of your priorities. You can navigate your career over time, knowing that phases of slowing down and
THE CAREER CHANGE GUIDE: FIVE STEPS TO FINDING YOUR DREAM JOB by Rachel Schofield Michael Joseph (2023)
One of The Telegraph’s best self-help books of 2023. Discover what you really want from work - and how to get there. This practical guide takes the confusion, fear and indecision out of career change. Whether making small adjustments or life-changing moves, it provides simple, achievable steps to turn your dreams into reality. The Career Change Guide will help you investigate your skills as well as discover your drives, interests and inspirations. It will take you on a structured five step journey of Preparing, Reflecting, Imagining & Designing, Taking Action and Keeping Going
“Don’t shortcut your career — play the long game by taking a long-term perspective on your career and balancing immediate needs with future aspirations.”
– S Gorbatov
speeding up are natural. Objectively reviewing your life commitments and how they change allows you to make rational decisions about when to push forward and when to pause.
By embracing the long game, you can build a sustainable career that aligns with your long-term goals and values.
CAREER ON COURSE: 10 STRATEGIES TO TAKE YOUR CAREER FROM ACCIDENTAL TO INTENTIONAL by Scott Jeffrey Miller Baker Books (2024)
Most careers unfold accidentally, haphazardly, and with too much serendipity. That means lost traction, lost years, and lost opportunities. But your career doesn’t have to be that way Career on Course unpacks the 10 steps that will take your career from accidental to intentional. Drawing upon insights and best practices from three decades in professional and leadership development, Scott Jeffrey Miller shares his process for creating a plan that empowers you to take control of your career.
By KELLIE MILLER
MORE THAN WORDS THE WORKS OF KATE RICHARDSON
To connect with the visual arts, you need to set time aside to feel. The messages conveyed can be just whispers. With many distractions and activities vying for our attention in a social media—and technologically dominated era, if we are not still enough in this noisy, demanding world, we can easily miss the sometimes hidden, treasured meanings.
Artist Kate Richardson is mindful of how powerful the medium of art is and how it communicates thoughts, feelings, and experiences that sometimes evade verbal articulation. She flows with her creativity, seamlessly moving between subject matters yet still retaining her signature style, a rare achievement for any artist.
concealed words underneath, often with enlightening content. If you take a moment to contemplate, you might catch the essence of her pieces.
“Through my art, I can explore and convey the depth of my feelings, fears, and aspirations in a way that my words might betray. It allows me to portray my inner world — the struggles, the joys, the confusion — in a tangible form that is often more profound than the limitations of language.”
Kate’s oil paintings are a unique expression of freedom, boundless in imagination
Kate’s oil paintings are a unique expression of freedom, boundless in imagination. With the addition of mixed media, each original piece is uncompromising and unlimited, with inspiration drawn from her home surroundings – windswept trees, dramatic shorelines, colourful fields and angelic beings. Her works are built as many layers, sometimes with
Like many artists, her work has an emotional element that reflects her description of the painting process as simultaneously cathartic, meditative, explorative, and exhilarating.
Her works are unspoken words that invite you into her world, where you can resonate with the art and reflect on your own stories.
Kellie Miller is an artist, curator, critic and gallery owner. www.kelliemillerarts.com
“Ashiel”
“Through my art, I can explore and convey the depth of my feelings, fears, and aspirations in a way that my words might betray”
– Kate Richardson
“Soleil”
“The Sign”
HOTEL INDIGO Stratford-upon-Avon
Tucked inside the heart of Stratford-upon-Avon, Hotel Indigo Stratford is everything a boutique hotel should be – full of character, elegance, and uniquely tailored to its setting. By Tess de Klerk
It is clear that this is a hotel with a story to tell. Standing across from Shakespeare’s final residence, this property is no mere nod to history; it immerses guests in Stratford’s past, while delivering all the comfort of a luxurious contemporary stay. A mere stone’s throw from the River Avon, a short stroll from the world-famous Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre, and nestled among the cobbled streets of the old town, the Hotel Indigo Stratford could scarcely be better positioned. You find yourself, quite literally, on Shakespeare’s doorstep, with all of Stratford’s major sights at your fingertips.
Hotel Indigo Stratford offers a wonderful base for anyone visiting Shakespeare’s hometown. The location couldn’t be better for sightseeing
with beams of dark, timeworn wood and heavy fireplaces that make you feel like you’ve stepped back into Elizabethan England. And even though it’s steeped in history, there’s nothing staid about the place – you can feel the care that’s gone into every detail, from the decor to the layout and even the carefully stocked minibar.
The addition of a newer wing to Hotel Indigo Stratford works well. A blend of old and new throughout feels effortlessly done. While history pulses through the older parts of the building, the newer areas are equally inviting, with a contemporary style that’s clean, fresh, and comfortable.
True to the Hotel Indigo brand’s commitment to celebrating the unique character of each location, this property honours its town’s heritage beautifully. The hotel occupies part of the 16th-century Falcon Inn, with the original building dating back to 1624. The Tudor section is filled
If you can, I’d recommend booking a room in the Tudor or Georgian parts of the hotel for that extra layer of historic charm. The rooms here are filled with period details but are also kitted out with the kind of luxuries one expects today –
think Egyptian cotton linens, large rain showers, and spacious bathrooms with a spa-inspired design. Our stay was in the more recent extension, which, while contemporary, still had plenty of thoughtful touches and a chic, cosy feel that made it easy to relax after a day exploring Stratford.
One of the highlights of a stay at Hotel Indigo Stratford is the fabulous breakfast. Served in the historic dining area, it’s a perfect way to start the day, with options ranging from a traditional full English to lighter, healthier options. Ingredients are clearly of high quality, and everything is beautifully prepared, down to the freshly baked pastries and perfectly brewed coffee. It’s well worth lingering a little longer over breakfast here, soaking up the atmosphere of the Tudor dining room while planning your day’s adventures.
The hotel’s gorgeous garden is another feature not to be missed. Set just behind the Tudor building, this peaceful retreat is a real surprise, with blooming flowers, cosy seating areas, and even a trickling water feature. Enjoying a cocktail or two here as the sun sets is one of the true joys of staying at Hotel Indigo. The garden’s relaxed ambience makes it feel like you’re a world away from the lively town centre, and it’s a fantastic spot to unwind before or after an evening out.
Overall, Hotel Indigo Stratford offers a wonderful base for anyone visiting Shakespeare’s hometown. The location couldn’t be better for sightseeing, and the blend of character and comfort makes it a special place to return to each evening. Whether you’re a history enthusiast, a theatre lover, or simply looking for a memorable weekend away, Hotel Indigo Stratford provides a uniquely Stratford experience. It’s the kind of hotel that invites you to slow down, savour the moment, and truly enjoy all that this charming town has to offer.
www.stratford.hotelindigo.com
+ GOOD TO KNOW
Accessible? The hotel has ramp access as well as rooms with roll-in showers, emergency pull cords and handrails.
Family-friendly? Yes, cots are available and they offer extra beds for children. Breakfast is charged at £10 for children under 12 and free for under 4s.
Pet-friendly? No, but service dogs can be accommodated.
Hotel parking is available but will be limited until 9/12/24. Alternative parking is available.
Double Queen Premium room (inc breakfast) starting from £144 pn in November
The Tudor Room
The Georgian Room
The Oak Room
MOWGLI STREET FOOD•BRIGHTON A journey through Indian street food
By Tess de Klerk
Nestled in Dukes Lane, Mowgli Street Food has quickly become a favourite in Brighton, offering an explosion of Indian flavours and a vibrant, laid-back atmosphere. Mowgli was founded by Nisha Katona, a former barrister turned food entrepreneur, who brings her passion for authentic Indian street food to the UK with a unique twist.
THE VISION BEHIND MOWGLI
Nisha Katona’s story is as inspiring as it is integral to Mowgli’s identity. After 20 years in law, she left her career to follow her love for food, driven by a desire to share the bright, authentic dishes of her heritage. Her approach to the restaurant world is far more than just culinary; she’s committed to creating a positive impact in the communities where Mowgli sets up shop. Mowgli has even earned a place on the Sunday Times Best Places to Work list, a recognition of Nisha’s dedication to building a nurturing and supportive work environment.
As Mowgli continues to grow, Nisha’s mission remains clear – to create enriching opportunities in every city her restaurants reach. Each full-time employee represents a sponsored child in need, while every Mowgli location partners with a local charity, donating proceeds
to support their cause. Through The Mowgli Trust, the restaurant has raised over a million pounds for local and international charities, making a meaningful difference with each new branch. For diners, knowing that Mowgli is built on values of community and compassion adds an extra layer to the experience, making each meal into something larger than the sum of its dishes.
ATMOSPHERE
Walking into Mowgli Brighton, you’re greeted by an inviting and lively space, blending modern design with touches inspired by Indian street culture. The décor is playful and comforting, with cosy swings, rustic wooden tables, hanging plants, and fairy lights creating a warm and earthy feel while capturing the essence of an Indian street-side eatery.
FOOD AND DRINK
Mowgli’s menu is all about sharing plates, offering a great way to explore a range of Indian street food flavours without committing to just one dish. A standout starter is the yoghurt chat bombs, crispy shells filled with spiced yoghurt, tamarind, and mint, delivering a perfect balance of sweet, tangy, and cooling flavours. Another must-try is the bhel puri, a popular Mumbai street food that combines puffed rice, vegetables, and chutneys for a crunchy, tangy taste sensation.
For something more substantial, the mother butter chicken is a comforting favourite, with tender chicken in a rich,
As Mowgli continues to grow, Nisha’s mission remains clear – to create enriching opportunities in every city her restaurants reach
creamy tomato-based sauce that’s ideal for scooping up with the soft puri bread. There are many vegetarian options. The aloo ghobi – a spiced blend of potatoes and cauliflower – is sublime. The house lamb curry is another highlight, slowcooked to perfection and packed with deep, bold flavours that keep you coming back for more.
The drinks menu also complements the food well, with refreshing options like the Mowgli gin fizz — a cocktail of gin, elderflower, and lemon that pairs beautifully with the spices in the dishes. For a non-alcoholic choice, the mango lassi is a cool, creamy drink that balances the heat and adds a touch of sweetness to the meal.
SERVICE AND EXPERIENCE
Mowgli servers are eager to offer recommendations, answer questions, and ensure diners enjoy each moment without feeling rushed. The team’s pride in their work creates a genuinely inviting atmosphere.
Mowgli Brighton stands out for its friendly, attentive staff, who add a welcoming warmth to every table
FINAL THOUGHTS
Mowgli brings Brighton a mix of authentic Indian flavours and a deep commitment to community. Founder Nisha Katona’s passion for food and positive impact shines through, making Mowgli more than a meal—it’s a memorable experience for any occasion.
Featuring an array of local, independent traders with a variety of stalls including local and artisan food and drink, and distinctive gifts and stocking fillers. You’ll also find workshops such as chocolate decorating. Younger visitors can enjoy the vintage carousel at the funfair, step into a giant snow globe and meet Santa in his Grotto. Storytelling sessions feature Mistletoe the Elf and the Christmas Tree Fairy who will weave together traditional tales from the North Pole.
November 23rd-24th
LEWES GRAYSON PERRY: A TEMPLE FOR EVERYONE
Explore the meaning of ‘home’ through the work of Grayson Perry, one of Britain’s best-known artists. From textiles and pots to ceramic tiles and woodcuts, ‘Grayson Perry: A Temple for Everyone’ tells stories of home, asking questions about how those stories shape who we are. How does our definition of home affect our sense of identity? What does it mean to be British today?
South of England Showground, Ardingly, RH17 6TL info@seas.org.uk
Until March 2nd 2025 Charleston, Southover Road, Lewes BN7 1AB
WHAT’S ON...
A brief snapshot of art and culture in
the region
MAIDENHEAD
AURIE
STYLA: THE AURATOR TOUR
After a year of performing worldwide, award-winning comedian Aurie Styla is back on tour, with his biggest one to date. Join him as he talks about this wild world, and his journey to make sense of it, in The Aurator! As seen on Deep Fake Neighbour Wars (ITVX), Comedy Central Live, Jonathan Ross’ Comedy Club (ITV), Life’s A Pitch (Sky), Don’t Hate The Playaz (ITV), The StandUp Sketch Show (ITV2), Mo Gilligan’s Black British & Funny (C4) & more.
November 30th
Norden Farm Centre for the Arts, Maidenhead, SL6 4PF norden.farm/events/aurie-styla-the-aurator-tour
CRAWLEY
MAKING STUFF HAPPEN
Producer Gathering, in partnership with Marlborough Productions and Creative Crawley, proudly presents Making Stuff Happen, a one-day event that breaks down the mysteries of event planning and what it means to organise public events in the arts. This is your chance to connect with like-minded creatives, get expert advice, and fuel your passion! This is part of The Creative Village, an exciting project by Creative Crawley that aims to empower creative professionals and volunteers in Crawley. This event is open to people who are interested in making stuff happen, volunteers, and creative professionals.
November 9th 2024 Theatre Centre, Crawley allevents.in/crawley/making-stuff-happen-for-creatives-andcurious-minds/100001011326584037
Experience Leonardslee Lights as its gardens become more magical than before! Awash with lights, sound and colour, a fun winter experience for everyone. Come for an incredible winter trail featuring a whole new route, along with impressive installations inspired by our beautiful gardens.
Selected dates: November 22nd – December 30th. Brighton Road, Horsham, RH13 6PP leonardsleegardens.co.uk/lights
NR ARDINGLY GLOW WILD
Sussex’s award-winning lantern trail offers unforgettable “wow moments” for the whole family with a new route, exclusive art installations, and a magical Christmas Eve date. Discover an immersive, interactive trail of hand-crafted lantern displays and bespoke light installations by leading artists, inspired by the hidden world of trees. Create memories under the iconic Christmas tree and be mesmerised by the giant flying owl and life-sized wood dragon, as the gardens are transformed into a wintery wonderland.
November 28th 2024 – January 1st 2025
Wakehurst Place, Nr Ardlingly, RH17 6TN kew.org/wakehurst/whats-on/glow-wild-2024
HOVE JAZZ AT ST ANDREWS PRESENTS
Paul and Vasilis are two of the UK’s finest and most prominent musicians and have collaborated together for over 20 years, so it is a great honour to welcome them both to St Andrews.
The Guardian praised saxophonist Vasilis Xenopoulos as a leading example of European musicians who live and perform in Britain. Paul Edis is one of the most creative musicians in the UK today. With Chris Coull (trumpet) Nigel Thomas (bass) and Angus Bishop (drums)
November 22nd 2024
St Andrew’s Church, CHove, BN3 2AD visitbrighton.com/whats-on/jazz-at-st-andrews-presents-pauledis-and-vasilis-xenopoulos-p2431071
CONCERT FOR UKRAINE
Distinguished Ukrainian International Musicians: Olga Paliy (piano) and Yuliya Shpyg (soprano) perform music by Mozart, Purcell, Scarlatti, Chopin, Poulenc, Kosenko & Ukrainian songs and more. Raising funds for Ukrainian young people’s charities.
November 17th
St Mary’s House And Gardens, Bramber, BN44 3WE stmarysbramber.co.uk
